I guess one way round ambiguities would be to write the bird’s name in lower case (eg little penguins) to conform with house style and then put the scientific name in brackets to indicate how specific you are intending to be.
I don’t think you are going to change the style manuals of the major publications. They are serious, well-considered documents, not just some ideas cobbled together by a bunch of journos in a bar.
Good luck either way. Peter Scott
John Leonard wroteStyle guides and so forth are all very well, but there comes a point when you have to know (if you’re a good editor) when to disagree with them.
The classic example of where you need capitals, as someone has already pointed out, is when a sentence reads “These islands host nesting colonies of little penguins…”
John Leonard ===============================
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