BIOTA
(living things)

Pronunciation of Scientific names:

Scientific names are expressed in Latin. The individual words or parts of words may be derived from other languages, eg Greek, or the names of places or people, but the resulting words are always Latinised, so it’s the pronunciation of Latin that is our concern.

There are four competing conventions for pronouncing Latin (as follows, each with the appropriate pronunciation of Julius Caesar):

Anglo-Latin	JOO-lee-us SEE-ser
Classical Latin (or reconstructed ancient Roman)	YOO-lee-us KYE-sahr
Church Latin	YOO-lee-us CHAY-sahr
The northern continental European tradition	YOO-lee-us T(SAY)-sahr

Anglo-Latin (Ommundsen) and northern continental European are the preferred conventions for Latin names. These differ from both Classical Latin, which will be familiar to those who learnt Latin at school, and Church Latin which will be recognised by those who sing in choirs.

Many people pronounce occasional scientific names in other ways, and local idiosyncracies often evolve among people who work together. Naturalists rarely worry about being "book correct", but these rules are useful to answer questions about which is "right".

Personally, what I hear and say seems stick fairly closely to Anglo-Latin, but I like to make an exception where the word is obviously two words joined together, when it can be helpful to emphasise the separate parts.