What conventions are used when writing the name of a species?

Scientific names for living things use the so-called Linnaean binomial system, where everything has a genus and species name. The genus is capitalized, while the species is not, and normally both are italicized. Sometimes the genus is abbreviated with its first letter.

For example, humans are Homo sapiens or H. sapiens.

The scientific name is useful because it is unique for each organism. In other Words, when you see a scientific name you know exactly what organism it refers to.

There are rules for naming things under this system, which is usually based on Latin.