Trochilidae (1 Viewer)

[Rick Wright]

Plenty of cases like this already well-known instance—just look at some of the birds named canadensis, capensis, cafer, to start with. I'm surprised the authors of this piece didn't look harder.
In any event, this appears to be yet another mountain made out of yet another molehill. It seems more than unlikely that the scientific species epithet should have discouraged attempts to have this named the "official" bird of PR, and even unlikelier that more than half a dozen non-ornithologists there even know that the bird is styled mexicanus. I would have liked to know what the bird is called in PR Spanish, by the way.
More fundamentally, these authors start by completely ignoring the fact that names, especially scientific names, are not words, and that the name Todus mexicanus makes no claim to provide any kind of information about the species' geographic distribution. It's a label, it's a tag, it's an arbitrary signifier. It has no "meaning" in the way that words do. Naive.

 

[pbjosh]

More fundamentally, these authors start by completely ignoring the fact that names, especially scientific names, are not words, and that the name Todus mexicanus makes no claim to provide any kind of information about the species' geographic distribution. It's a label, it's a tag, it's an arbitrary signifier. It has no "meaning" in the way that words do.

That's a take on scientific names I've not seen before. albigularis for White-throated Flycatcher, platyrynchos for birds with flat bills, mexicana/us for 13 species that occur in Mexico (and, comically, 2 that don't), jamaicensis for 7 species, auratus for Orange Oriole, etc etc... these are all just meaningless words that were arbitrarily assigned?

 

[l_raty]

That's a take on scientific names I've not seen before. albigularis for White-throated Flycatcher, platyrynchos for birds with flat bills, mexicana/us for 13 species that occur in Mexico (and, comically, 2 that don't), jamaicensis for 7 species, auratus for Orange Oriole, etc etc... these are all just meaningless words that were arbitrarily assigned?

A recent paper has argued that scientific names are neutral (i.e., cannot be offensive) because nobody understands them, and they do not need to make sense...

 

[thomasdonegan]

Three observations here:

1. ICZN can reverse priority (it has the power to do so), so if people are so hacked off about mexicanus they can apply to the Commission to get it changed. I appreciate the political, conservaton and societal points being made but they would have to demonstrate that these were more important than the Principle of Priority. Which you could criticise and come up with a better system for, but is basically how things work. (The most affronted persons by the Principle of Priority in avian name history were Brisson and Latham, but they are dead and so noone really comes online here to complain about the hundreds of their often better names or names which should have taken their authorship, that were usurped by Gmelin, Statius Muller or Pennant in Code-compliant indices.)

2. I think there is a misconception here about what scientific names are. Of course, a person describing a name should try to do their best to use a good or appropriate name. I've written here that it would be best to use geographical indicators and morphological features where possible, since even patronyms are uninformative. However, this is what the Code says: 'A scientific name must, when first published, have been spelled only in the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet (taken to include the letters j, k, w and y); .... a name may be a word in or derived from Latin, Greek or any other language (even one with no alphabet), or be formed from such a word. It may be an arbitrary combination of letters providing this is formed to be used as a word.'

That this Tody is called mexicanus is not a problem under a Code. A name need be only a combination of letters. It could just as well have been called mxcns. The Code does not aim to create informative names, only combinations of letters which are not the same combinations as in other names. I kind of think this paper is imagining a different naming system and convention to exist.

3. For the revolution - ICZN would not I think manage name corrections across all Animalia, but it could delegate to committees for each taxonomic group who could have powers and more time or inclination to make corrections. It would be a different Code with different governance system, which needs more resource, which might not exist.

 

[THE_FERN]

People get too hung up on this sort of thing (meaning of the name). The primary function is as a unique identifier and what it actually means isn't important

 

[pbjosh]

People get too hung up on this sort of thing (meaning of the name). The primary function is as a unique identifier and what it actually means isn't important

I mostly agree, but denying that there is meaning in the names is pretty silly.

A peer reviewed paper can state that there is no meaning in the names but if many people read them and understand them, the paper starts to look a little out of touch with reality.

Again, I'm not really trying to wade into this with an argument. I don't think Todus mexicanus particularly is screaming for a renaming or that it would be a particularly worthwhile endeavour. But at the same time, mexicanus very, very clearly means something. Perhaps folks want to argue that it doesn't matter if it means the wrong thing for it to fulfill its role in nomenclature. But that is a very different argument from "it just doesn't mean anything."

 

[THE_FERN]

Biology is littered with thousands of names which have an incorrect or inappropriate geographical element. Of course a lot of this is because the origin of material wasn't known at the time, may not be known now. It would be a huge and thankless (pointless) task to try to "correct" this. It would also make it even harder (if it weren't hard enough) to follow taxa through time. I've noted previously that it's actually quite difficult to read seminal C19th travelogues by Wallace etc and understand which species they're talking about—the names they use are so different to those we use today.

Let's try to avoid name changes as much as we can...

(whilst recognising that they never will stop changing, just as taxonomy will [should] never be frozen)

 

[njlarsen]

Agree, let us try to avoid needless changes, including changes because some historical figure was a human being rather than a saint.
Niels

 

[TicoTyler]

That's a take on scientific names I've not seen before. albigularis for White-throated Flycatcher, platyrynchos for birds with flat bills, mexicana/us for 13 species that occur in Mexico (and, comically, 2 that don't), jamaicensis for 7 species, auratus for Orange Oriole, etc etc... these are all just meaningless words that were arbitrarily assigned?

Just curious if one is on a different checklist than Clements as I can only find 12 with the name mexicanus that occur in Mexico and the two that don't (Oriole Blackbird and Puerto Rican Tody). It was a fun fact I included on an Instagram post I made of a Black-headed Nightingale Thrush (Catharus mexicanus).

 

[pbjosh]

Just curious if one is on a different checklist than Clements as I can only find 12 with the name mexicanus that occur in Mexico and the two that don't (Oriole Blackbird and Puerto Rican Tody). It was a fun fact I included on an Instagram post I made of a Black-headed Nightingale Thrush (Catharus mexicanus).

Sialia and Tangara mexicana...

 

[THE_FERN]

That's a take on scientific names I've not seen before. albigularis for White-throated Flycatcher, platyrynchos for birds with flat bills, mexicana/us for 13 species that occur in Mexico (and, comically, 2 that don't), jamaicensis for 7 species, auratus for Orange Oriole, etc etc... these are all just meaningless words that were arbitrarily assigned?

I think the problem is that the "purpose" of scientific names was never clear at the start. The way they've grown up, they attempt to fulfil several different ones. So, the fact that the primary objective is to provide a unique id gets lost in secondary considerations

As an example, the requirement that you must have a genus name causes lots of instability. It's not needed to fulfil the requirement of a unique id. You could do that using unique numbers---"species1234" etc. how you then choose to arrange those names (genera etc) becomes a different question.

Since humans find memorising numbers difficult, we try to assign "meaningful", "memorable" names (some more than others! ...Parastratiosphecomyia stratiosphecomyioides fair rolls off the tongue...). But this really isn't necessary to fulfil the primary purpose and it does involve lots of arcane rules that just serve to make names less accessible (gender agreement etc).

Once we see all this, hopefully we become less hung up on geographical correctness etc. if the name meets the unique id criterion then stet.

 

[Dave Boyle]

So it was necessary to change 1000's of names to align the gender of the genus & specific names but a few names can't be changed to correct very obvious mistakes because its against a made-up code & would destabilize avian taxonomy?

I would humbly suggest anybody saying it doesn't matter & its just a unique place-holder hasn't lived on a small island with endemic birds

 

[pbjosh]

So it was necessary to change 1000's of names to align the gender of the genus & specific names but a few names can't be changed to correct very obvious mistakes because its against a made-up code & would destabilize avian taxonomy?

I would humbly suggest anybody saying it doesn't matter & its just a unique place-holder hasn't lived on a small island with endemic birds

When I step back, this is exactly how I see it. ICZN code adherence "demands" myriad changes that are, at the end of the day, fairly pointless, particularly if you take the scientific names to be merely placeholders. And in the Setophaga / Dendroica case, while I admit I know nothing of the details of how the decision was made, it does seem like common sense stability of 29 names was thrown out the window due to priority / precedence of a genus name. And yet when a name like mexicanus for a Puerto Rican bird is offered up to be changed, everyone is up in arms. I still don't have a dog in this race and don't particularly care about anachronistic / inaccurate scientific names, but I very genuinely see why many people who are not taxonomists don't put a lot of stock in the code.

 

[Jim LeNomenclatoriste]

Since humans find memorising numbers difficult, we try to assign "meaningful", "memorable" names (some more than others! ...Parastratiosphecomyia stratiosphecomyioides fair rolls off the tongue...).

A new genus of Pseudosuchian has just been described: Benggwigwishingasuchus eremicarminis. Scientists take great pleasure in naming genera to cause strokes. It looks like a competition for the longest and most unpronounceable name in the world

 

[l_raty]

ICZN code adherence "demands" myriad changes that are, at the end of the day, fairly pointless, particularly if you take the scientific names to be merely placeholders. And in the Setophaga / Dendroica case, while I admit I know nothing of the details of how the decision was made, it does seem like common sense stability of 29 names was thrown out the window due to priority / precedence of a genus name.

There was no decision to be made.
This is the fundamental point in having a Code: you are entirely free to decide of the circumscription of the taxa you want to recognize, but once you have taken this decision, there are strict objective rules that tell you which name you must use. As the rules are objective and the same for all, this ensures that the next worker who passes after you and adopts the same taxa, whatever his opinion on some subjective issues, will use the same name for them. And the next one after him.
If you depart from this, you kill any hope of stability and universality.

 

[l_raty]

A new genus of Pseudosuchian has just been described: Benggwigwishingasuchus eremicarminis. Scientists take great pleasure in naming genders to cause strokes. It looks like a competition for the longest and most unpronounceable name in the world

Recommendation 25C. Responsibility of authors forming new names. Authors should exercise reasonable care and consideration in forming new names to ensure that they are chosen with their subsequent users in mind and that, as far as possible, they are appropriate, compact, euphonious, memorable, and do not cause offence.

.... 🙄
(But of course, it's only a recommendation -- no name can be corrected or rejected on the mere account that it did not conform to it. Perhaps these authors should be frowned upon a bit more, though.)

 

[Jim LeNomenclatoriste]

Recommendation 25C. Responsibility of authors forming new names. Authors should exercise reasonable care and consideration in forming new names to ensure that they are chosen with their subsequent users in mind and that, as far as possible, they are appropriate, compact, euphonious, memorable, and do not cause offence.

.... 🙄
(But of course, it's only a recommendation -- no name can be corrected or rejected on the mere account that it did not obey it. Perhaps these authors should be frowned upon a bit more, though.)

Maybe I might be wrong, but originally Latin binomial names were just the Latin equivalents of common names. Today is sometimes a fair for wtf names. How can you communicate about a species that has a name of 200 kilometers ?

 

[l_raty]

Maybe I might be wrong, but originally Latin binomial names were just the Latin equivalents of common names. Today is sometimes a fair for wtf names. How can you communicate about a species that has a name of 200 kilometers ?

Linnaeus once wrote : Nomina generica sesquipedalia, enunciatu difficilia vel nauseabunda, fugienda sunt.
Rejecting names because they were too long was a common practice in the 19th C.

 

[Mysticete]

if you are coming up with a new species, or new genus and species, there is really no need nowadays to come up with a ridiculously long name. I think if you see such a new name coined, its almost certainly intentionally done, to purposely make a ridiculous sounding name.

Apparently at the moment according to google, a species of soldier fly claims the title of longest scientific name for an animal:

Parastratiosphecomyia stratiosphecomyioides

Wikipedia also has an amusing list:

List of long species names - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Jim LeNomenclatoriste]

if you are coming up with a new species, or new genus and species, there is really no need nowadays to come up with a ridiculously long name. I think if you see such a new name coined, its almost certainly intentionally done, to purposely make a ridiculous sounding name.

Apparently at the moment according to google, a species of soldier fly claims the title of longest scientific name for an animal:

Parastratiosphecomyia stratiosphecomyioides

Wikipedia also has an amusing list:

List of long species names - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Curiosities of Biological Nomenclature: Wordplay: Length

Look at this site