If possible, always check whether the taxon is not present in BioLib under other scientific synonym. If the name exists in BioLib, duplication check will report a warning when adding a new taxon or scientific name. The more synonyms you provide for added taxon the higher the chance that one of the synonyms will be linked to an existing taxon and you will not create a duplicate entry.

Scientific names

species - two words (genus name and species name), without subgenus name, for example Carabus scheidleri. Subgeneric name can be used in synonymy, however the name without the subgenus name should also exist in synonymy, in order for duplicate checks to work properly.

subspecies - name consists of three words for animals (without text "ssp." or "subsp.") for example Carabus scheidleri zawadzkii. For plants and fungi the name contains "subsp." text.

forms - name cotains text "f.", for example Anas platyrhynchus f. domestica

varieties - name contains text "var.", for example Beta vulgaris var. vulgaris

convarieties - name contains text "convar.", for example Pisum sativum convar. medullare

cultivars - name of cultivar is in simple quotation marks (') for example Petroselinum crispum convar. radicosum 'Hanácká'

hybrids - name contains character "×", for example Aquilegia × cultorum. You can use letter "x" instead "×", BioLib will automatically convert the character when adding a name.

Writing an authorship

For animal taxa authorship consists of an author and year of a first description of a taxon which follows its latin name. For species the authorship is sometimes included in parenthesis, which means that the species was originally placed in different genus. Authorship should only contain author of a first description, not a citation of a later work that places the species in different genus. For plants, year is usually omitted and both author of original description and author of new genus placement appear in an authorship.
Examples (animals):
correct: Linnaeus, 1758
correct: (Linnaeus, 1758)
incorrect: (Linnaeus,1758)
incorrect: (Linnaeus 1758)
Examples (plants, fungi):
correct: (L.) R. Br.
correct: L.

The correct format of authorship is important for functions that link scientific name to a record in BioLib using its latin name and authority (because sometimes the same latin name might apply for multiple taxa).