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As used in zoological nomenclature tautonymy is a term meaning that the name of a species or subspecies consists of words of the same spelling. That is: the name of the genus is repeated as the specific name or subspecific name. In zoological nomenclature this is quite allowed, and no special provisions apply to such names. Examples of tautonymy are:
The ICZN has dropped the use of "tautonym" as a formal term in favor of "tautonymous name". In informal usage "tautonym" continues in use among zoologists, as in the list of tautonyms.
Note that botanical nomenclature is rather different: for one thing the ICBN does not use the term "tautonymy", but only uses the noun tautonym.
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