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Curiosities of Biological Nomenclature
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Mark Isaak
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Alaskozetes antarcticus (Falkland Islands
mite)
Anoura caudifera (tailed tailless bat)
Bombus (Psithyrus) (cuckoo bumblebee)
Latin "Bombus" means buzzing or booming. The Greek-based subgenus
name "Psithyrus" means "whisper".
Brachinus elongatulus Chaudoir, 1876 (bombardier beetle)
From Greek Brachyus "short" and Latin elongatus "prolonged".
Both refer to the length of the beetle's elytra.
Calonectris leucomelas (streaked
shearwater) The specific epithet means "white black" in
Greek.
Carlina acaulis ssp caulescens,
(stemmy stemless thistle)
Datura stramonium v. inermis (thornless
thornapple)
Eptatretus hexatrema (Müller, 1836)
and
E. octatrema (Barnard, 1923) (hagfish)
Eptatretus means "seven-holed" (referring to the gills). The
specific epithets mean "six-holed" and "eight-holed", respectively.
Eptatretus polytrema (Girard, 1855) might
qualify here, too; polytrema means "many-holed", referring to
the hagfish's fourteen gills.
Eriogonum inflatum var. deflatum Johnston
(buckwheat)
Euphoria morosa Janson 1881 (scarab beetle)
[Cist. Entomol. 2:581-585, but synonymized with
E. precaria by Hardy 2001, Pan-Pac. Entomol.
77:132]
Hexagrammos octogrammus (Pallas, 1814),
H. decagrammus (Pallas, 1810), and
H. agrammus (Temminck & Schlegel,
1843) (greenling fish) The genus means "six-lined"; the specific
epithets mean "eight-", "ten-", and "no-lined", respectively.
(H. hexagrammus is a synonym for H. stelleri, the type
species for the genus.)
Mammuthus exilis Stock & Furlong, 1928 (pygmy
mammoth) The scientific name means the same as the common
name.
Microlaimus macrolaimus Allgen, 1947
(nematode) "Small gullet / large gullet".
Monanchora dianchora de Laubenfels, 1935
(sponge) "One anchor / two anchors".
Spottobrotula amaculata Cohen & Nielsen,
1982 (fish) Literally means "Spotted cusk-eel without
spots".
Unifolium bifolium Schmidt (European May
lily) Now, alas, synonomized with Maianthemun
bifolium.
Another taxonomic term deserves mention here:
atypicotype - an unoffical term for a type
specimen which the author considers uncharacteristic of the
taxon.
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Mark Isaak.
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