For the sake of those who might not wish to go through the registration
process on the NY Times website, here's the text, which includes at the
bottom a link to another interesting site on the same topic ...


What's in a name?

If you're a tiny creature native to the Indian subcontinent, exactly 36
vowels and consonants. That's what it takes to spell Prolasioptera
aeschynanthusperottetii, a primitive fly discovered by an Indian
entomologist, M. S. Mani, in 1943.

The hefty name may be just about the only thing unusual about P.
aeschynanthusperottetii, an otherwise forgettable insect. But it is hardly
the most unusual name in the animal kingdom. (It isn't even the longest:
another fly weighs in at 42 letters.)

Scientists may be serious people, engaged in the pursuit of objective truth.
But when it comes to naming species, they often let their hair down.

So the insect world has Heerz tooya, Apopyllus now and Pieza pi and Pieza
rhea, among thousands of puns and other oddities. (In science, all creatures
are binomial, with a capitalized genus name followed by a lower-case species
name.) The oceans are home to Ittibittium, a genus of mollusks that are
smaller than those named Bittium. There are species named for body parts and
bodily functions, for celebrities, painters and writers, for cartoon
characters and favorite sports. For those who find it to be all too much,
there is even Ba humbugi, a snail from Fiji.

Since the scientist who discovers a species gets the right to name it, the
lay public doesn't often have a chance to join in the fun. But the Wildlife
Conservation Society announced this month that it would auction off the
naming rights to a new species of monkey found in Bolivia. The money raised
by the auction (beginning Thursday at www.charityfolks.com) will go to
wildlife protection in that country.

So, to the victor goes the spelling. And just about any spelling goes.

"We have a code of ethics - no names that could be offensive on any
grounds," said Neal L. Evenhuis, an entomologist at the Bishop Museum in
Honolulu and current president of the International Commission on Zoological
Nomenclature, which oversees the naming process (similar groups exist for
plants and bacteria). Beyond that, and requirements for Latinizing certain
words, the person naming a species has wide leeway.

Dr. Evenhuis has taken some of that leeway himself with several of the more
than 500 species of insects he has named. The flies Pieza pi and Pieza rhea
are his creations, as are Pieza deresistans (relying on an alternative
pronunciation of the genus name) and his personal favorite, Phthiria
relativitae.

"It's not that I'm desperate," Dr. Evenhuis said. "I just have this streak
of levity. Not all names have to necessarily be kind of boring."

Others, however, are desperate. The problem is there are too many species.
Well over one million animal species have been described, and millions more
are awaiting discovery. And there are still many known species that no one
has had the time to name yet. "There are not enough taxonomists to go
around," Dr. Evenhuis said.

While some scientists try to follow the traditional practice of
incorporating an organism's characteristics into its name, others give up
and try something else. So there are creatures from Aa to Zyzzyx. There are
the palindromic names Ababa and Xela alex. There's a species for every Tom,
Dick and Harry: Ptomaspis, Dikenaspis and Ariaspis. There are several moth
species that easily could have come from that novelty song "The Name Game":
bobana, momana, fofana. These and other unusual names have been compiled by
Mark Isaak and are available at his Web site,
http://home.earthlink.net/~misaak/taxonomy.html.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
[log in to unmask] - a forum for informal discussions on molluscs
To leave this list, click on the following web link:
http://listserv.uga.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=conch-l&A=1
Type your email address and name in the appropriate box and
click leave the list.
----------------------------------------------------------------------