Dear All,
I can't remember if I mentioned this during the last discussion of naming
and strange molluscan names.  My favorite is a land snail named by the late
Alan Solem in 1978 or 1982 in one of his treatises of the endodontoid land
snails of Oceania.  He named a new genus, new species as follows.  He named
the new genus Ba after the region of Fiji in which it was collected.  And
he states in the etymology . . . I paraphrase . . . I was overcome by the
irresistable impulse to name the species humbugi.  So there is a Fijian
land snail named Ba humbugi.  It follows the rules and is valid.  And, by
the way, it was described from a single specimen (the holotype) and to my
knowledge, has not been collected since.
 
Kurt
 
 
At 09:48 AM 10/13/98 -0500, you wrote:
>As Helmut Nisters says, an author is free to name a species in almost any
>manner that is consistent with the rules of nomenclature. These rules have
>mostly to do with Latin grammar, so a very broad range of names is
>possible. The rest of this message will deal only with matters of taste,
>not rules.
>
>Names for species should be varied and interesting, because one of the most
>important purposes of names is to aid memory. In addition, most names
>should be appropriate, that is, they should indicate an important
>characteristic of the species (form, color, locality, stratigraphic age,
>etc.). With thousands of molluscan species to name and remember, there is
>plenty of room for names that celebrate the collector, a favorite
>professor, a wife, or even a cat. It does seem more appropriate to honor a
>collector (who may feel that this is a fair trade for donating a rare
>specimen to a museum) or a conchologist (whose name is sure to be well
>known to the people who deal with the species) than to honor someone who
>has no connection to the species or even to conchology. In this light, a
>mollusk named for a cat is an anomaly.
>
>The common name for a species in the local language often makes quite a
>good Linnean name.
>
>Insulting names have been given, though editors are supposed to weed these
>out in manuscript. For instance, the vertebrate name Cophater may (or may
>not) be a punning insult (Cope-hater) to E. D. Cope, whose 19th-century
>rivalry with O. C. Marsh is well known in the annals of paleontology. More
>often, insults are unintentional. A trace fossil similar to Glockeria was
>named Subglockeria, for instance, and sub- ("under") is not a very nice
>prefix for a person's name (Glocker). But no insult was intended.
>
>People who give their own name to species are scorned or laughed at, like a
>soldier who wears medals that he didn't earn.
>
>Sometimes a researcher will concoct a new name that sounds well in one
>language, but is obscene in another. This too is usually unintentional, and
>reviewers and editors try to avoid this situation. There are so many
>languages that almost anything is probably offensive in one or another.
>
>Names should be euphonious (sound well). Names that are very difficult to
>pronounce in Latin or Greek are usually not advisable. A classic example of
>this is Parapecten ntlakapamuxanus, which is easy to pronounce in the
>languages of the Pacific Northwest of North America, but difficult for most
>people elsewhere in the world. One suspects that the author enjoyed playing
>this little joke on the entire community of zoologists.
>
>Names should also be short.
>
>Most people enjoy the occasional taxonomic joke. Jokes are memorable and
>add variety to nomenclature. However, just as a humorist on the stage
>benefits from having a "straight man" who seems to lack a sense of humor,
>taxonomic jokes are most amusing when set in a serious background. Also,
>jokes must surprise in order to be funny, so each joke must be different.
> Puns are common. Finally, one must consider the difference between humor
>based on current events (which may not be funny next year) and humor that
>lasts well. Today's joke can be merely tiresome next year, loathsome in
>five years, and impossibly obscure in a century. I have to admit, a genus
>named for a bad cat is pretty funny! But a whole series of mollusk names
>honoring dead cats would be merely bizarre in a hundred years.
>
>So, to sum up, new names should be short, sweet, apt, and catchy, with just
>enough exceptions to make it interesting.
>
>Andrew K. Rindsberg
>Geological Survey of Alabama
>