Who Defines the Scientific Names? (2 Viewers)

[jollydragon]

Red-crowned Cranes are an important part of Chinese culture from ancient time. We often call them respectfully as Xianhe, that is Angel Crane in English. 'Red-crowned Crane' is chinese scientific name in China. Because of its importance in Chinese culture, the Red-crowned Crane was selected by the National Forestry Bureau of the People's Republic of China as its only candidate for the national animal of China. But this decision was deterred because the Red-crowned Crane's Latin name translates as "Japanese Crane"(Please refer to the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red-crowned_Crane). The Red-crowned Cranes in Japan origin in China and in a very minor population compared to that in China. I'm confused how the international scientific name was defined as 'Grus japonensis'??? Who can help tell who define the scientific names? Why are they not reasonable, fair and objective???

 

[Surreybirder]

I am only guessing, but I think that many of the scientific names were probably assigned by Europeans who 'discovered' the animals. If the first red-crowned crane seen by a western biologist was in Japan he might well have called it japonensis. He might just as easily have called it victoriensis after the queen of England - the convention is that the person who first describes a species 'for science' gets to choose the name. I am sure that there are hundreds of inappropriate names of animals (and other orders, too). It should not be taken too seriously - stick to Angel Crane if you want.

 

[wintibird]

In the case of Grus japonicus it was the German Philipp Ludwig Statius Müller who described the bird first. He lived in the 18th century.
Some scientist travelled around the world. By describing a specimen (a dead bird) they gave it the scientific name. Others were based in Europe (or somewhere else) and received specimens from other people who where collecting.
I only guess in this case that the first specimen came from Japan and that Müller was maybe totally unaware that this species is much more common in China.
A lot of specimens were named after their place of collection (eg in India there are a lot of pondicerianus = from Pondicherry). Some where named after their appearance (eg albogularis = white throated) and others named in honour of a person (eg homeyeri after Homeyer).

Scientific names can't be changed. The rule is, that if someone gives another name to the same bird (which happened often as there were no things like Internet) the first name has priority. Changing the names would create a chaos.

I personally think that it is a pitty that because of the scientific name China is unable to choose this beautiful and endangered species as National bird. The birds don't care about their names.....

André

 

[jurek]

Hi,

Google for "biological nomenclature" and "scientific names" to see how they are made. Basicaly, the first name stays, even if it is wrong.

Red-crowned Crane, however, naturally is a cultural symbol all over East Asia: China, Japan and Korea.

 

[mcaribou]

I dont think it's a big deal.People in other countries can also treat this beloved bird as their National Bird.
I will see them coming back again to their wintering ground-Yancheng next week,which is much more important as to the conservation efforts.

 

[china guy]

The natural beauty of any Crane transcends the human banality of name-calling - energy used on this discussion would be far better spent on preserving the ever decreasing habitat that any Crane species in China can enjoy without the dangers of human encroachment.
These pics were taken 2/3 days ago - from Northern Yunnan - Black-necked Crane - such an immaculate bird, who cares what its called!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[jollydragon]

Thanks for all of your comments. Anyway, it's obvious that the international scientific name is an error and misleading. Who is willing to be called or call his/her child with another family name? The organization announcing and maintaining scientific names should be responsible, reasonable and objective. Now that the name of Red-crowned Crane can't be corrected, I don't want to see any one more new scientific name is improper!

 

[dalat]

Who could define "improper"? Eg. the Vietnamese or other nations would also have reason to be upset about Oriolus chinensis, Cissa chinensis, Streptopelia chinensis etc.

Applying nationalism to bird names certainly does not make any sense (and a bit less of nationalism all around would be a good thing anyway) . Birds don't care about names and they don't care about borders either.

 

[wintibird]

Who could define "improper"? Eg. the Vietnamese or other nations would also have reason to be upset about Oriolus chinensis, Cissa chinensis, Streptopelia chinensis etc.

Applying nationalism to bird names certainly does not make any sense (and a bit less of nationalism all around would be a good thing anyway) . Birds don't care about names and they don't care about borders either.

:clap::clap::clap::clap:

 

[jollydragon]

Maybe 'Oriolus chinensis, Cissa chinensis, Streptopelia chinensis etc' are improper too! Dalat, please don't misunderstand. Please read my posts carefully to know I agree that the bird name shouldn't be titled with nationalism. But why do the organization accepted this kind of names? I also agree Birds don't care about names. But they are named by human beings. Now it's human who care about the names. In one word for my concern: there's misleading, there's problem!

 

[fugl]

Maybe 'Oriolus chinensis, Cissa chinensis, Streptopelia chinensis etc' are improper too! Dalat, please don't misunderstand. Please read my posts carefully to know I agree that the bird name shouldn't be titled with nationalism. But why do the organization accepted this kind of names? I also agree Birds don't care about names. But they are named by human beings. Now it's human who care about the names. In one word for my concern: there's misleading, there's problem!

No, not misleading at all. Employment of these terms in scientific names would only be so if treated as living words independent of their use in scientific nomenclature, & this is exactly what they are not. “Japonensis”, for example, doesn’t “mean” anything in English as an independent word & I would guess that that’s the case in Chinese also. Except for its specialized use in scientific names it’s as dead as the defunct language from which it is drawn.

It seems to me that the best course in contexts where nationalism comes into play is to simply ignore “misleading” scientific names & to treat the local vernacular names as the “real” ones. That’s after all what most people—who don’t even know the scientific names--do anyway.

 

[jollydragon]

Fugl, thank you for your comment. But I'm confused after reading your post. Why is 'Grus japonensis' translated to 'Japanese Crane' in English if Latin words don't mean anything in English? The words have their meanings although the language is dead already. Correct?

 

[dalat]

The organization announcing and maintaining scientific names

As you can read from the posts above, there is no such organisation that is accepting, maintaining or proclaiming names. It's the individual scientists who first describe a bird or a bug who name them. So if you find a new bird and describe it in a scientific paper, you can name it after the country where you found it, after your country, after your wife or in whatever way you like. Other scientists and scientific organisations will accept your name as long as you are the first to describe that bird. Scientific names are just names, they are supposed to be unique but not to lead to anything, so there is also no way they could be misleading.
I think it is quite regrettable that this magnificent bird that has such a meaning for Chinese people cannot be chosen as national animal just because a German guy 250 years ago named that bird without taking care of future national sensitivities...

 

[jollydragon]

I think it is quite regrettable that this magnificent bird that has such a meaning for Chinese people cannot be chosen as national animal just because a German guy 250 years ago named that bird without taking care of future national sensitivities...

Thank you for your kind comment. Now that English is an international language and the latin names can be translated to English names which causes misleading, I still don't think the naming way of scientific names is good and reasonable.

 

[jollydragon]

As you can read from the posts above, there is no such organisation that is accepting, maintaining or proclaiming names.

Thanks for your post. What's the scientific paper you mentioned? How can I do when I found a new bird and want to name it and have others accept my name?

 

[dalat]

Hi, as fugl has said, latin names are not directly translated into english or other languages. The correct English translation of Grus japonensis is Red-crowned Crane. Of course you can try to literally translate the latin name, but that would be just for fun, or to understand the history behind the name.

About the scientifc paper, that's a text written by scientists for scientist (normal people usually hardly understand that kind of writing) where they describe the new bird in very detailed way (colours, measures, habitat, voice) and compare it to other similar birds etc. And in this paper they also propose a name. Here you can see such an example for a bird recently discovered in Lao: http://www.orientalbirdclub.org/publications/forktail/25/WoxvoldDuckworthTimmins-Bulbul.pdf

Back to the Crane and it's name: Don't forget that scientific names are only used by scientists, normal people usually do not know or care about them. For example the USA have a very famous national bird, the Bald Eagle. I am sure that 99,9% of all USAmericans have never heard of "Haliaeetus leucocephalus". I think it would be same with the Crane. All Chinese people know the bird by its Chinese name, the only ones that know that it is also called Grus japonensis are the scientists, and they also should know why the name is like that and not be bothered about it.

 

[Mysticete]

In order to "name" a new bird you first have to find a species never before recognized, and describe and name it in a peer reviewed publication.

As for meaning of names, there are plenty of latin names which don't translate into the "common name" of the bird. Red-crowned Crane is the same bird as "Grus Japonicus", but the common name is not Japanese Crane. Latin names really are used for different purposes than scientific names, largely for communication between scientists and other researchers. They are standardized as described because the literature would be incomprehensible if people arbitrarily changed the name. We use the first described name because it is seen as the fairest and less arbitrary way of deciding what name to use

 

[china guy]

Latins names - right from the start of modern taxonomy have stirred up passions :-O
Old Linnaeus sometimes used very "explicit" titles when naming some of his species.
Since this site ain't focused on adult content - Ill just post this quote form another site on dirty old Linnaeus -
"Some critics also attacked it for its sexually explicit nature: one opponent, botanist Johann Siegesbeck, called it "loathsome harlotry". (Linnaeus had his revenge, however; he named a small, useless European weed Siegesbeckia.) "
And the moral of the story - beware those who attack Latin names - some taxonomist maybe reading - your main marker in history maybe the naming of a weed, leech, mosquito or some other lowly looked-down-upon creature!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Surreybirder]

The system may not be perfect - and it's regrettable if people feel offended by some of the scientific names chosen. But it would be virtually impossible to change the system now that there are literally millions of animals, plants, fungi - extant and extinct - named with the Linnean system. Consider Ascaris lumbricoides - a nematode that causes diseases in people - if that were suddenly renamed by a committee of scientists in, for example, the USA, it could cause confusion in future scientific publications and even, conceivably, lead to missed opportunities for treating the disease. In any case, if a committee was set up to rename all the ones that caused upset, they would probably still make decisions that upset people. People are very hard to please, especially with our history of wars, oppression, nationalism, imperialism, colonialism etc. [Just to give one example, supposing someone in the UK named a worm after the leader of a certain extremist right-wing party, how controversial would that be?]
As has been said above, fortunately the birds themselves are blissfully unaware of what we call them.
Ken

 

[jollydragon]

China guy, Surreybirder, you two please read all of my posts in this thread and understand my opinion better first.