While the genus name literally means "like a mouse", it coexisted with Thisbemys, a similar rodent, thus yielding a reference to Pyramus and Thisbe.
In zoology, a subgeneric name can be used independently or included in a species name, in parentheses, placed between the generic name and the specific epithet: e.g. the Tiger Cowry of the Indo-Pacific, Cypraea (Cypraea) tigris Linnaeus, which belongs to the subgenus Cypraea of the genus Cypraea.
A tiger's binomen is Panthera tigris, so for a Sumatran tiger the trinomen is, for example, Panthera tigris sumatrae.