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Why are scientific names usually italicized?

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A diagram showing the hierarchy of animal classification in taxonomy, with colored boxes arranged from broadest to most specific: domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species. — taxonomy Animals and other organisms are classified within a succession of nested groups that ranges from the general to the particular.

In the field of taxonomy, scientific names are italicized to indicate their formal scientific status.1

This practice is part of the standardized binomial nomenclature system, which provides every described species with a precise, universal name consisting of a genus and a species identifier. By italicizing these names, biologists distinguish them from common names, which can vary by region or language and often lack the precision required for scientific communication.21