vitripennis

Vitripennis is a Latin-derived species epithet used in the scientific names of several described species across a range of animal groups. The epithet combines vitreus or vitreum meaning glass and pennis meaning wing, typically alluding to translucent, glassy, or conspicuously clear wings or wing membranes observed in the described organism.

Because vitripennis is a descriptive epithet rather than a proper noun, it does not identify a single taxon. It appears in binomial names across different genera and families, and independent taxonomists have described unrelated species with this same epithet. The reuse of descriptive epithets across taxa is common in biology, and the same epithet can occur in insects, arachnids, and other invertebrates, as well as in plants or other groups when Latin naming is used.

Taxonomic notes: When compiling lists or databases, it is important to track the genus and higher classification in addition to the species epithet, since vitripennis alone is not unique. The name should be treated as part of the full binomial in formal references, and the epithet is not carried over if a species is moved to a new genus (the binomial may change while the epithet often remains the same).