Bacterial Names

I have deliberately left out the names of most of the bacteria discussed in this lecture, the reason for this is that most are long and hard to pronounce. For those who are curious the names are listed below.

Bacterial names are in two parts and written in italic if typed or underlined if handwritten. The first part is what biologists call the genus, this always starts with a capital letter. The second is the species name and this is not capitalised.

All species names are different but some have the same genus names – it is thought that these are related.

An example of this is Escherichia coli. The genus name can be shortened to a single letter such as in E. coli.

Pronunciation Guide

Bacterial Movement (one example of each movement type given)
Tail at one end	Caulobacter species	Call-o-back-ter
Tail at both ends
Peritrichous	Escherichia coli*	Esh-er-ish-er co-lie
Gas vesicle	Microcystis species	Micro-sis-tis
Gliding	Beggiatoa species	Beg-ee-a-toe-a
Bacterial senses (one example of each sense given)
Chemicals	Almost all
Light	Rhodospirillum centenum	Ro-doe-spear-ill-um sent-en-um
Water ‘purity’	Escherichia coli*	Esh-er-ish-er co-lie
Temperature	Escherichia coli* (likes 34°C)	Esh-er-ish-er co-lie
Oxygen	Escherichia coli*	Esh-er-ish-er co-lie
Magnetic	Aquaspirillum magnetotacticum	Ak-wa-spear-ill-um mag-neet-o-tact-ee-cum
Electric	Escherichia coli*	Esh-er-ish-er co-lie
Immortality and Hibernation (one example of each given)
Makes endospores	Bacillus thuringiensis	Bass (as the fish)-ill-us thur-ring-gee-en-sis
Makes myxospores	Myxococcus	Mix-o-coc-us
* E. coli is mentioned often as it is the organism many of these traits were discovered within.

Thanks are given to Dr. Dave Hodgson of Warwick University for checking these names and correcting them where necessary