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Why can the same animal be a lion in English and leon in Spanish? Those everyday names change with language, even when you're talking about the same animal. Different labels, same animal. Scientists use one shared, two-part name to make clear which species they mean. That system is called binomial nomenclature: a way to give each species a two-part scientific name. Scientific names are usually Latin or Latinized, shared across languages. Take the lion's name, Panthera leo. The first word, Panthera, is the genus: a group of closely related species, not the name of this lion alone. The second, leo, is the specific epithet, the part that distinguishes this species within that genus. Neither word alone is the full species name; together, they identify the lion. In writing, capitalize the genus, keep the specific epithet lowercase, and italicize both. So scientists use Panthera leo, a shared standard instead of local common names.