Names in science - what a headache!
A friend of mine returned from Switzerland, where an arachnological conference (conference on spiders) was held. With him, he brought news about some funny new species named after movies. There is one named afther The big Lebowski, Anelosimus biglebowski n. sp., brought to us by Agnarsson and Zhang. The spider is from Tanzania. Also from there is a species from the same genus, Anelosimus dude n. sp. One has to wonder, if Dude, where’s my car had any influence on authors’ inspiration (if you want to call it that).
It’s common practice to name new species after people. There’s a cave beetle named after Adolf Hitler, Anophthalmus hitleri (all known locations from Slovenia), Angelina Jolie has a spider, Aptostichus angelinajoleae, a naturalist Karl Ziga Zois has a plant Campanula zoysii (see some info here). Sometimes even geni are named after people. In memory of a botanist Franc Hladnik, higly endemic genus with only one species Hladnikia pastinacifolia was named after him (more over here). A few weeks ago, Stephen Colbert had a trapdoor spider named after him (it may not be a unique species, though).
There are many more organisms named after people. Do you remember any?
See reference:
Agnarsson, I. & J. X. Zhang. New species of Anelosimus (Araneae: Theridiidae) from Africa and southeast Asia, with notes on sociality and color polymorphism. Zootaxa 1147: 1-34.
Many humorous biological names are summarized here.
Comment by Steve — 2 September, 2008 @ 1:49
I just accidentally found another funny spider name…it’s a genus name this time - gen. Abracadabrella Zabka, 1991.
Zabka, M. (1991). Salticidae (Arachnida: Araneae) of Oriental, Australian and Pacific regions, VII. Mopsolodes, Abracadabrella and Pseudosynagelides-new genera from Australia. Mem. Qd Mus. 30: 621-644.
I hope I can describe and name a few species someday myself.
cheers
Comment by Matjaz — 25 September, 2008 @ 13:44