Systematic sexism: gender-neutral rule changes are needed

The development of an inventory of earth’s biodiversity—identifying and naming all living species—is a central tenet of biological science. For over 250 years, the Linnean system has been the predominant naming approach, with new species designated by a unique Latinized binomina following rules laid out by the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (Anonymous 1999; “the Code” below) for animal taxa, while the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi and plants (Turland et al. 2018) is the set of rules dealing with formal botanical names.