Talk:Snowshoe Hare
From Academic Kids
Close, but no cigar, Jade Squirrel.
Species names are capitalised, but "hare" is not a species name. Generic names that refer to a number of different species are not capitalised. For example: "Snowshoe Hare" because that is a particular exact species, Lepus americanus. But "hare" (lower case) because that is not a species name, it's just a class of animals. Another example: "Brown Rat" means Rattus norvegicus, a particular exact species. But "brown rat" means any rat at all (there are a couple of thousand species in the family) so long as it happens to be brown in colour.
It's almost exactly the same as the capitalisation rules for other things. We capitalise "Golden Gate Bridge" because that is a particular exact bridge, but if we are not specifing an exact bridge then we just say "the bridge across the river", not "the Bridge across the river". Tannin
Thanks for further clarifying the Wikipedia capitalization rules. Sorry for the inconvenience. (-: Jade Squirrel
