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Date: | Thu, 10 Sep 1998 10:52:26 -0500 |
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Don't despair, Paul; your instincts are correct. The names that sound
suspicious may not have literal sexual meanings, but many of them were
probably intended as puns.
A possible example from the world of trace fossils is Bergaueria, the name
for a round, stubby, vertical cylindrical burrow. The author, Prantl, wrote
that he intended to honor Bergauer, a Czech geologist who was killed by the
Nazis. The oral tradition is that Prantl also considered the late Bergauer
to be a little putz.
Other dubiously named trace fossils include Diplocraterion yoyo (a burrow
that went up and down), Taenidium satanassi (named for a place in Italy),
and Walcottia devilsdingli (named for a place in Britain). I'm quite sure
that the authors of these names chose them carefully from among other, more
prosaic alternatives. Then there's Rusophycus impudicus, of which all I can
say on Conch-L is that it really was named descriptively.
Andrew
Andrew K. Rindsberg
Geological Survey of Alabama
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