sulcatus

Sulcatus is a Latin adjectival epithet used in the scientific names of numerous species across different kingdoms. The word means furrowed or grooved, referring to a physical feature such as a groove, sulcus, or rib. In taxonomy, sulcatus is gendered to agree with the genus name (for example sulcatus in masculine form, sulcata in feminine, or sulcatum in neuter).

Because it is a descriptive epithet rather than a taxon itself, sulcatus appears in the species names of many unrelated organisms, including animals and plants. It is typically applied to taxa that exhibit grooves, ridges, or furrows on a part of their anatomy—such as shells, leaves, seeds, bones, or other structures where grooves are pronounced. The presence of the epithet in a name signals a morphological characteristic rather than indicating a shared evolutionary lineage.

As with other species epithets, sulcatus does not on its own identify a particular species. To locate information about a specific organism, the full binomial name (genus plus sulcatus) must be known, and the genus may change with taxonomic reclassification. Therefore, sulcatus serves as a descriptive descriptor used across diverse groups rather than as a singular taxonomic unit.