I completely share the views put forth by Ajith Kumar (Curr. Sci., 1998, 75, 426-427) and Ganeshaiah (Curr. Sci., 1998, 75, 412) regarding the eroding standards of assigning names to organ- isms. In my opinion, names should be assigned to organisms in the following order of priority: character, type locality and 'model taxonomists' (who has played a remarkably significant role in docu- menting the flora or fauna).

The basic concept of defining a species itself is based on the degree of qualitative and quantitative differences in the macro- scopic morphological feature exhibited by the organisms (except in few groups of organisms where stereomicroscope is resorted to); thus it is not a strange demand that taxonomists should name the species based on its distinguishing char- acters. Further, since most of the Latin or Greek words are used in English language, even non-biologists can unravel their meaning.