Clostridium tetani is an obligately anaerobic bacillus that is gram positive in fresh cultures but may have variable staining in older cultures or tissue samples.25 The complete genome of the organism has been sequenced, and its products were recently compared with other clostridia.26 During growth, the bacilli possess abundant flagella and are sluggishly motile. Two toxins, tetanospasmin (commonly called tetanus toxin) and tetanolysin, are produced during this phase. Tetanospasmin is encoded on a plasmid that is present in all toxigenic strains.
B. The reason we have the nomenclature (name) system we have is because it can reveal more about the animal. For example, it tells our genus and our species. Just the common name can apply to anything
