purpuratus

Purpuratus is a Latin adjective used as a species epithet in binomial nomenclature. It is not a standalone taxon, but a descriptor applied to numerous, unrelated organisms to indicate purple or purplish coloration or a distinctive purple feature.

In biology, several well-known species bear the epithet purpuratus. The purple sea urchin, Strongylocentrotus purpuratus, is an echinoderm native to the Pacific coast of North America and a widely studied model organism in developmental biology and genomics. The purple mussel, Mytilus purpuratus, is a bivalve found along the Pacific coast of South America, including Peru and Chile. The Peruvian scallop, Argopecten purpuratus, is another prominent example, an economically important mollusk that is native to the coast of Peru and northern Chile and is widely cultivated.

The epithet appears across diverse taxa, reflecting a historical practice of naming species by visible traits. Because purpuratus is a descriptive term rather than a reference to a single lineage, it may appear in different genera that are not closely related. Etymologically, purpuratus derives from Latin purpura, meaning purple, and has been used since the era of early systematics to denote coloration or a purple attribute in the species.