Template:Hybrid

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The template {{Hybrid}} is for properly formatting the name of a Hybrid (biology) (including a nothospecies or nothogenus) in the context of a scientific name (or as one), to comply with the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN), International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (ICN), and International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants (ICNCP). The style it uses has also been adopted internationally by biology organizations, and is standard practice in all zoological, botanical, horticultural, and bacteriological writing (though exact spacing particulars may vary from publisher to publisher).

What it does for you

• Used without parameters, it supplies the proper "×" character (multiply/times/by sign, not an "x" or "X" letter), as required by the specifications. It also forcibly de-italicizes this character (also as required by the specs) in infobox parameters that pre-italicize everything.
• With one or more parameters, it inserts the "×" character at the correct place in the hybrid name for the type of hybrid it is (if you use the template as documented below), and ensures the "×" character is not italicized – all as required by the specs.
• Ensures that the first letter of the input is capitalized, as required by the specs for most cases.
  • Permits this to be overridden to lower-case for species-level hybrid names, which can exist in botany (e.g. Citrus × sinensis)
• Italicizes the hybrid's epithets, as required by the specs.
• Joins the "×" to the first epithet (when given two) with a non-breaking space, and a regular space between "×" and the second epithet, in cases like Felis lybica × Prionailurus bengalensis; this is the standard spacing for all such hybrids in the specs.
• Uses a hair space character between "×" and the epithet (when given just one), in cases like Citrus × sinensis. This spacing is optional in the spec for this sort of hybrid name, but is a readability improvement over both full spacing (which is confusingly ambiguous) and no spacing (harder to parse), and is a metadata improvement over no spacing. It's also better than no spacing for accessibility reasons, since screen readers will interpret it as a times character followed by a name to pronounce, rather than as a jumble of non-word code to sound out character by character. (A hair space is preferable to a thin space here, because the italics are only permitted to apply to the name not the interpolated "×", and the italic slant away from that character makes a thin space appear as large as a full space.) The template encodes the hair space as a numeric character entity,  , because the named HTML entity,  , fails in some browsers.
• Wraps two constructions in the {{Nowrap}} template to prevent awkward line-breaking between the "×" and the epithet it should be "stuck" to (because browsers are not consistent in how they treat hair spaces, and many will wrap immediately before or after one):
  • For "Felis lybica × Prionailurus bengalensis" cases, the "×" is nowrapped to the first epithet.
  • For "Citrus × sinensis" cases, the "×" is nowrapped to the second epithet.

In short, it reduces these complicated and error-prone scrawls:

• {{nowrap|''Felis lybica'' ×}} ''Prionailurus bengalensis''
• {{nowrap|× ''sinensis''}}

to these simpler markups, respectively:

• {{hybrid|Felis lybica|Prionailurus bengalensis}}
• {{hybrid|sinensis|lc=y}}

Usage

By default (with no parameter input) the template simply outputs the "×" character, forcibly de-italicized in case it's being subjected to an infobox line's default italics.

This template should not be substituted. It is not designed for that, and doing so will impede part of the purpose of the template (to mark up hybrid names in a predictable, automated way so that if ICZN and ICN change the prescribed nomenclatural markup, a simple change to this template will apply the new style site-wide).

Parameters

These are easiest understood by looking at the examples in the sections below.

• |1= or first unnamed parameter – This is always the first epithet of the hybrid.
• |2= or second unnamed parameter – This may be the second epithet, or – for a special case – it can be any of x, X, or ×, as documented below.
• |lc=yes or |lc=y – Lower-cases the first letter of the input when the template is only supplied with one epithet. This is only for below-genus cases with their own epithets in botany, like Citrus {{hybrid|sinensis|lc=y}}
• |invert=yes or |invert=y, etc. – Reverses the italics handling, for use of a taxon inside a book title; see below for details.

Alone, to just generate the "×" character

This template is designed for instances where the hybrid cross symbol (×) cannot be displayed correctly (i.e., non-italicized) in a scientific name, due to italic pre-formatting in the Taxobox or some other template, like {{Infobox dog breed}}, etc. (Wether any particular font even displays × differently when italicized varies font-by-font, but we should encode it correctly.)

Example usage, in a parameter the output of which is forcibly italicized:

|parameter_name= [[Felis silvestris]] {{hybrid}} [[Prionailurus bengalensis bengalensis]]

which produces:

Parameter title: Felis silvestris × Prionailurus bengalensis bengalensis

The same format is used for non-italicized infobox lines, and in running article text.

Using a non-breaking space is best in running text, but may not be necessary in an infobox parameter. It is safest, and never wrong, to include it.

With two epithets, attaching "×" to the first with a non-breaking space

You can supply the template with both hybridized epithets as parameters, and it will non-breaking-space and nowrap the "x" to the first of these, and also output the second epithet:

Example (for running text, or an infobox, whether it force-italicizes or not):

{{hybrid|[[Felis silvestris catus]]|[[Prionailurus bengalensis bengalensis]]}}

which produces:

Felis silvestris catus × Prionailurus bengalensis bengalensis

This template does not support three or more epithets. Simply use multiple instances of the template for complex cases. You can even nest them, for the non-breaking effect (to keep every "×" connected to an epithet, without making the entire three-name construction non-breaking):

{{hybrid|Foo|{{hybrid|Bar|Baz}}}}

produces:

Foo × Bar × Baz

This template does not support a {{hybrid|Foo|x|Bar}} syntax.

With the first epithet, to attach "×" to it with a non-breaking space

To avoid having to manually generate the character and   markup, you can supply the template with the first epithet as the first parameter, and "x" or "X" (or, of course, the legit "×"):

Example in an infobox parameter that auto-italicizes:

|parameter_name= {{hybrid|[[Felis silvestris catus]]|x}} [[Prionailurus bengalensis bengalensis]]

which produces:

Parameter title: Felis silvestris catus × Prionailurus bengalensis bengalensis

Example in running text, or in an infobox parameter that does not auto-italicize:

{{hybrid|[[Felis silvestris catus]]|x}} ''[[Prionailurus bengalensis bengalensis]]''

which produces:

Felis silvestris catus × Prionailurus bengalensis bengalensis

Complex example in an infobox parameter that auto-italicizes, showing use of italics markup to "flip" italics on plain-English material that shouldn't be in italics:

|parameter_name= {{hybrid|[[Felis silvestris]]|x}} ''unknown'' [[Prionailurus]] ''species''

which produces:

Parameter title: Felis silvestris × unknown Prionailurus species

Complex example in running text, or in an infobox parameter that does not auto-italicize, showing selective use of italics for a bit that should be italicized (genus name):

{{hybrid|[[Felis silvestris]]|x}} unknown ''[[Prionailurus]]'' species

which produces:

Felis silvestris × unknown Prionailurus species

This style should only be used in infoboxes and other tabular data to save space; otherwise use plainer English (see "A deprecated use", below).

With a single epithet, to prefix "×" to a botanical hybrid name given in stand-alone "× Something" format

The "×" is used as prefix, in botany only, for a nothogenus or nothospecies hybrid. This template will generate the character, hair-space it to the epithet, and nowrap the construction:

{{hybrid|Amarcrinum}}

produces:

× Amarcrinum

When lower-case is required

This same style is also used for species-level epithets for hybrids that have been given their own conventional names, except the epithet is lower-case, and comes after the genus. The |lc=yes (or |) parameter is used to make the case change:

''Citrus'' {{hybrid|sinensis|lc=y}}

produces:

Citrus × sinensis

One of the purposes of this template is distinguishing this use more clearly from Foo × Bar cases, which use full spacing, and which are hybrids between two taxa, not a genus epithet followed by a species-level hybrid epithet; probably only biologists would notice the capitalization difference.

Use in a book title in running prose (not in citation templates)

For things italicized in running text (like a hybrid's progenitor epithets), the convention is to invert the italics when these appear inside a book title or other surrounding string that is itself italicized. This can be done with this template by using |invert=yes (or |invert=y). Example:

• "According to Alice B. Ceesdale's ''The Bengal Cat and International Animal Trafficking Laws: An Index of Regulations Affecting {{hybrid|Felis silvestris catus|Prionailurus bengalensis|invert=y}} Hybrids'', at least thirteen countries ..."

which yields:

• "According to Alice B. Ceesdale's The Bengal Cat and International Animal Trafficking Laws: An Index of Regulations Affecting Felis silvestris catus × Prionailurus bengalensis Hybrids, at least thirteen countries ..."

This must not be used in titles of works in citation templates, as such markup breaks the citation template's COinS metadata. Just use a manual + ''Crataegomespilus'' (without {{nowrap}} or other templating).

A deprecated use

This template is not for misusing the "×" character outside of a scientific name, as a stand-in for plain English:

• Right: "Iron Age pig" is a breeder term for a hybrid between a wild boar (Sus scrofa) and a domestic pig (Sus scrofa domesticus).
• Wrong: "Iron Age pig" is a breeder term for a wild boar (Sus scrofa) × domestic pig (Sus scrofa domesticus) hybrid.

The latter is extremely jargonistic, journal-style writing, and may not be understood by readers who are not biologists. See also WP:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers on mid-sentence misusage of scientific symbols more generally.

See also

• {{Graft chimera}} AKA {{chimera}} – similar template for properly formatting the name of a graft chimera in a longer scientific name.
• {{Trade designation}} AKA {{tdes}} – similar template for properly formatting a trade designation (selling name, marketing name) of a cultivar.
• {{Taxon italics}} AKA {{taxit}} – similar template for auto-italicizing the correct parts of a taxonomic binomial (or trinomial, etc.); can be used as a wrapper about the above ones.
• Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Organisms – detailed reference on how to do taxonomic and other names correctly.
• Wikipedia:Manual of Style § Animals, plants, and other organisms – summary guideline (mostly about capitalization, and properly using italics for binomials).

The documentation on top is transcluded from Template:Hybrid/doc. (edit | history)
Editors can experiment in this template's sandbox (create | mirror) and testcases (create) pages.
Add categories to the /doc subpage. Subpages of this template.