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Curiosities of Biological Nomenclature
Mark Isaak
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Wordplay: Oxymorons

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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