Skinny On

Latin Names for Living Things

Phish thing
By Hannah Holmes

"Linnaeus had a thing for order," Florida botanist and Latin coach Mark Garland says appreciatively of the 18th-century Swedish botanist. "He tried to name all the plants. And all the animals." In the time of Linnaeus, Latin was the language of the sciences. In the time of Garland, Latin is the language that drives scientists to drink.

Although science still relies on Linnaeus' Latin-based system for naming animals, the average scientist no longer knows aspersa from elegans. (The first means "scattered," as in spots; the second is "elegant.") So, while naming a new species may constitute a great moment in the life of a zoologist (animals) or a botanist (plants), it may also herald a moment of great embarrassment.

"There are some pretty atrocious mistakes," says Garland, who offers his services to botanists who increasingly spurn the language that used to be de rigueur for science scholars.


But first let's review the many little rules to this game.
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Linnaeus decreed that every species should have a moniker composed of a "genus" name and a "specific epithet." The cougar, for instance, shares the genus name "Felis" with all other felines (cats). The cougar's specific epithet, which is his alone, is concolor, meaning same-colored. The disorder sewn by such synonyms as cougar, catamount, mountain lion, panther and puma is swept away by Felis concolor. The "genus" name is always capitalized; the specific epithet is not; and the whole thing is put in italics.

That's the easy part.

Latin is one of those languages that offers innumerable endings for each word, and each ending changes that word's relationship to the other words in the sentence. Goof up your endings, and your new bug could be stuck with the name "smith of Butterfly," instead of "Butterfly of smith."

Take, for example, Myotis auriculus. Myotis describes a "mouse-eared" genus of bats. No problem there. But the namer choked on a specific epithet meaning "little-eared." Auriculacea would have done the trick, but perhaps all those ending vowels were off-putting. So the bat is stuck with auriculus, which is easier to pronounce, means nothing at all and translates roughly as, "Mouse-eared bloohoo."

And these names do stick. The rules decree that once a description and Latin name of a new species have appeared in a scientific journal, it's official and eternal, grammatical errors included.


But it's possible that the bat could have fared even worse at the hands of someone who was Latin-literate.
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That's because, for all their niggling detail, the international zoology naming rules say little about the nature of the names, as long as they're "Latinized."

So an unloved yellow daisy was recently named damnxanthodium, probably a comment on the number of yellow-daisy species that look maddeningly similar, says Garland. In the beetle genus, Agra, there is a species named Agra vation. There is a genus called Aha, and a species named Aha ha. There is a fish named for Frank Zappa, Zappa confluentus, and an owl louse named for cartoonist Gary Larson, Stigiphilus garylarsoni. There is a genus of crustaceans named for Godzilla, Godzillius. There are genera of moths named Polichisme and Ochisme ("ch," in Latin, is pronounced as "k").


Linnaeus himself was not above naming nasty weeds after people he disliked.
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And while the zoology code now discourages names that are "intemperate," or that could "give offense on any ground," it appears scientists are more respectful of tradition than of modern rules of etiquette.

But if there's one aspect of tradition that makes researchers tremble more than Latin itself, it's the rule of priority: Regardless of who finds a bug or bluebell first, the first to publish a name and description for it wins the day.

So imagine graduate-student Jane discovers a new genus and species of beetle, and out of gratitude to her professor June, describes it long and carefully, and sends off a paper naming the bug Junym chisingup. Now, imagine her slimeball colleague Betty steals a peek at Jane's notes, and trots out to "discover" this beetle herself. Betty dashes off a description of the beetle, and hands it to a pal who edits a beetle journal. It's unfortunate and unfair, but that beetle's name is going to be known forever as Ukan chismybutt.


Vocabulary

nomen nudum, n. If you have a new animal but no time to publish a description and name, there is a way to "reserve" a name for it. (Scientists who work with insects can have large backlogs of unnamed species.) Say you want to save a name for your blue bug. When you're writing a paper about black bugs, find an excuse to mention the blue bug's intended name. It becomes a nomen nudum, or "naked name." The name's not official until you publish a description of the bug, but your colleagues will respect your claim.


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    Hannah Holmes conducts her research in Portland, Maine, where she discovered and cultivates Silli scientificae. A fresh "Skinny On ... " appears every other Friday, adding to Hannah's extensive work for Discovery Online. She also writes for Escape, Outside, Sierra, Backpacker, Eco Traveler and Women's Sports and Fitness. Send her a note at skinny@online.discovery.com.


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    Copyright © 1997 Discovery Communications, Inc.