-monas
Suffix in microbiology
title: "-monas" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["scientific-suffixes", "bacterial-taxonomy", "biological-nomenclature", "english-suffixes", "neo-latin-suffixes"] description: "Suffix in microbiology" topic_path: "philosophy" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/-monas" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary Suffix in microbiology ::
The suffix -monas is used in microbiology for many genera and is intended to mean "unicellular organism".
Meaning
The suffix -monas found in many genera in microbiology is similar in usage to -bacter, -bacillus, -coccus or -spirillum. The genera with the suffix are not a monophyletic group and the suffix is chosen over -bacter, often simply out of stylistic preferences to match with Greek words.
The first genus to be given the suffix -monas was Pseudomonas, a genus of gammaproteobacteria. The generic epithet Pseudomonas was coined by Walter Migula in 1894, who did not give an etymology. Since the 7th edition of Bergey's manual (=top authority in bacterial nomenclature), other authors have given the etymology to be: Greek grc (ψευδής, false) and grc (μονάς, single unit or monad), which can mean "false unit". However, "false unit" conceptually does not make much sense, namely, it does not mean "an organism which may falsely appear as a single unit but it is not" as it is not found in multicellular chains nor was it ever described as such. One speculation is that the name was chosen simply out of aesthetics,{{Cite journal | last1 = Palleroni | first1 = N. J. | title = The Pseudomonas Story | journal = Environmental Microbiology | volume = 12 | issue = 6 | pages = 1377–1383 | year = 2010 | pmid = 20553550 | doi = 10.1111/j.1462-2920.2009.02041.x
Grammar
Main article: Bacterial taxonomy
In English to make a vernacular name for members of a genus, i.e. trivialising the scientific name, the scientific name is taken and written with sentence case and in roman type (i.e. "standard") as opposed to uppercase italic, the plurals are generally constructed by adding an "s", regardless of Greco-Roman grammar. In the case of genera ending in monas the ending is changed to monad with plural -monads.{{Cite journal | pmid = 13259458 | doi = 10.1146/annurev.mi.09.100155.000245 | last1 = Buchanan | first1 = R. E. | title = Taxonomy | journal = Annual Review of Microbiology | volume = 9 | pages = 1–20 | year = 1955
Archaeal genera
::data[format=table]
| Genus | Phylum | Class | Order | Family |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Natronomonas | Euryarchaeota | Halobacteria | Halobacteriales | Halobacteriaceae |
| Thermogymnomonas | Euryarchaeota | Thermoplasmata | Thermoplasmatales | |
| :: |
Bacterial genera
::data[format=table]
References
References
- Migula, W. (1894) Über ein neues System der Bakterien. Arb Bakteriol Inst Karlsruhe 1: 235–328.
- Migula, W. (1900) System der Bakterien, Vol. 2. Jena, Germany: Gustav Fischer.
- {{lpsn. pseudomonas.html. Pseudomonas
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