What does spp. or sp. exactly mean?

Nature Talk
1

I have come across the term spp. or sp. when researching spiders at point. What does this exactly mean?

2

I believe it is used in nomenclature to specify the number of unknown species- say, I saw one gull I didnā€™t know the species of; I say Sp. If I see a group of gulls of multiple species, I say Spp., as it acts as the plural for a group of species.

3

Guess I canā€™t simply say ā€œyepā€ :grin:

4

So funny that the words species (singular) and species (plural) are the same and yet the abbreviations are differentā€¦ And why two pā€™s? Why not sps.? :thinking:

Edit: I tried to Google who came up with these abbreviations or where they come from, but I couldnā€™t phrase the question in a way Google would understand

5

Itā€™s the same as page vs pages: p. vs pp. Wikipedia says the second p. in spp. stands for pluralis.

6

My guess is that SPP ā†’ SPecies Plural

7

I donā€™t think Iā€™ve seen anyone use ā€˜sp.ā€™ regularly. Itā€™s just the short form for a singular species.

ā€˜Spp.ā€™ Is the abbreviation for a group of species, usually within a genus. As in: Crataegus spp., or Amelanchier spp., Salix spp..

8

oh and thereā€™s ssp. just to confuse the unwary (for ā€˜subspeciesā€™)

9

The extra ā€˜pā€™ does not stand for ā€œpluralā€; in Latin, abbreviations are pluralized by doubling a letter.

10

So, a sparrow species could be abbreviated as " sp. sp.".

11

I see (and use) it all the time. If I know itā€™s in genus Melaleuca but donā€™t know which one, then I write ā€œMelaleuca sp.ā€ iNat just happens to use a display form that avoids this.

12

ā€¦ and of course the plural ā€œsspp.ā€ However, the accepted plural for ā€œvar.ā€ (variety) seems to be ā€œvars.ā€ Itā€™s all as consistent as everyday English.