text: should the name of bacteria be in italics? citation all the names of species should be written in italics or underlined (if italics are not available, for instance in handwriting). in addition, the name of the genus is always capitalized, whereas the name of the species and/or subspecies are never capitalized.  many bacteria also have a code that identifies the strain (special lineage), this can be a combination of letters and numbers. this is an international code agreed upon by  all the scientific comunity.