As an aside, please note that the word “species” is spelled “species” in both the singular and plural forms. The word “specie” doesn’t exist in biology (it is an English word but it means something to do with money/coinage, nothing related to flora & fauna).
Sure, I don’t doubt there are others who make the same error (especially as a vast number of academic papers are written by people for whom English is their second or third language), but you won’t find the singular form “specie” accepted in any dictionary or grammar guide. And in my experience of proofreading and copy-editing, I’ve not encountered a publishing house with a stylesheet that would accept it either.
The example you give (Vârban, 2006) is written by a native speaker of Romanian, and was not published in a professional journal so won’t have been through a professional proofreading process. Indeed, opening the first page of that paper, I also see “fowering” (instead of “flowering”) and the phrase “The research were carried out…” – so I am not sure I would treat that paper as a guide for proper English.
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I agree that there is surely more complexity to the story (there invariably is in etymology!) I checked the full OED and it doesn’t have a record of “specie” (other than in the monetary usage) but it does record “specieses” being used as an alternative plural up until about 1800.
The only two dictionary sources I could find mentioning “specie” in the taxonomic meaning were Wiktionary, which says that it is a “proscribed singular of species which is universally considered by prescriptive references to be an error: a back-formation from species (plural), the final ‘s’ being misinterpreted as a plural ending.”; and Merriam-Webster, which defines it as a “non-standard singular form of species; a back-formation from species (taken as a plural)”. In other words, these two acknowledge that it is sometimes used but that it came about through misunderstanding.
A few other sources I found on the matter (they all pretty much seem to agree):
https://brians.wsu.edu/2016/05/31/specie/
https://thetrcompany.com/en/difference-specie-species/
https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/188182/when-did-species-become-the-word-for-both-the-singular-and-plural
https://strategiesforparents.com/specie-or-species-the-difference-between-two-distinct-terms/
https://bugguide.net/node/view/172949
https://www.quora.com/Is-species-singular-or-plural-How-do-you-say-the-alternate-version-of-the-word
https://preply.com/en/question/singular-of-species
https://hinative.com/en-US/questions/932837
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Specie is also used in describing types of particles. e.g., Steinhauer, L. C., & Ishida, A. (1997). Relaxation of a two-specie magnetofluid. Physical review letters, 79(18), 3423.
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Which is not biology. QED.
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Don’t be fooled by the “two” in “a two-specie magnetofluid”; that doesn’t make the noun grammatically plural. In English compound nouns of that form, we use the singular noun: a “two-man tent” or a “ten-rung ladder”… (not a two-men tent or a ten-rungs ladder).
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I have occasionally heard the word “specie” used in a biological context – in one case, by an administrative person/manager who oversees biologists – in reference to some biological study or finding. It’s often a flag that the person has little or no biological training. But then I’ve also heard the occasional biologist say “genuses” instead of genera!
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Because genuses is a form as accepted as genera. https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/genus
Yeah, but it’s not common (at least in my experience) and if you’re writing for publication it probably won’t fly.
Even though it is uncommon it is correct, so if things were going fair way you couldn’t be stopped and corrected for using it.
Genuses is the non-standard plural. Technically correct, but not much used.
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The use of species as both singular and plural, as we use it today, was common in biological publications at least as far back as the 1850s. Probably even much earlier, but I haven’t made the effort to search the literature older than that.
Added note: at least back to the 1820s.
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It’s an interesting question to ask those authors how they understand their use of that word and its meaning. https://www.etymonline.com/word/specie
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Sometimes […] they use both in the same publication.
Does not speak well for the publication. Sloppy editing/proof-reading.
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