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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Richard Klim" data-source="post: 3167558" data-attributes="member: 773">Trouble is, British common names (even the official BOU names) frequently omit the qualifying prefix for the 'default' species in a British context.  So if leading capitals were to be used for species in general literature, then journalists, novelists, travel writers etc would have to navigate a bewildering minefield: Robin, thrush, Blackbird, sparrow, Starling, Buzzard, eagle, Cod, trout, Perch, stickleback, Haddock, Cat, bat, deer, Dog, Badger, Mole, vole, Hedgehog, Hazel, oak, Beech etc etc...  (OK, I've probably got some of those wrong.)I'm sure that attempts to get it 'right' would lead to widespread (and very annoying) inconsistency, compared to using lower case.Birders frequently trot out examples such as 'little owl' as creating ambiguity, but in practice a reader would usually need to be exceptionally thick to be unable to see from the context whether an author was using a general description or referring to a particular species.Anyway, although birders periodically whinge about it amongst themselves (and will no doubt continue to do so), it's ultimately a completely pointless argument.  There's absolutely no way that a tiny fanatical minority is ever going to persuade non-specialist authors to use leading capitals wherever a name concerns (what happens to be) a biological species.</blockquote>