- This article is not about formal zoological nomenclature; it describes terms that are sometimes used, but that have no standing under the ICZN.
In
zoology, the word "form" or
forma (literally Latin for
form) is a strictly informal term that is sometimes used to describe organisms. Under the
International Code of Zoological Nomenclature the term has no standing (it is not accepted). In other words, although form names are Latin, and are sometimes wrongly appended to a
binomial name, in a zoological context, forms have no
taxonomic significance at all.
