Tautonymy

Tautonymy is the special case in which an organism's generic name and species name are identical to each other within its binomial scientific name. The textbook's example is Naja naja, the scientific name of the Indian Cobra, where both the genus (Naja) and the species epithet (naja) are the same word.

Tautonymous names are relatively uncommon, and while some taxonomic codes disallow them entirely (notably the botanical code governing plant names), they are permitted under the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) that governs animal names — which is why Naja naja is a valid and widely used scientific name. Recognising tautonymy is a useful way to see clearly that the generic name and specific epithet in a binomial are two gen …