Butterflies with
strange names !
The popular names
given to butterflies are often fascinating. Here are a few of my
favourites :
|
Shower of Gold |
Argyrogrammana
stilbe |
Trinidad |
A tiny golden
Riodinid which frolics in small groups in late afternoon
sunshine in hillside forests. |
|
Golden Lady
Slipper |
Pierella hyceta |
Peru |
Get's it's name
from the low dancing flight on the forest floor, which has
been likened to the movements of a ballroom dancer's feet. |
|
White-spotted
Tadpole |
Syrmatia lamia |
Brazil |
A
miniscule black Riodinid with long tadpole-like tails on
the hindwings. It only flies on cold dull days. |
|
Maiden's Blush |
Cyclophora punctaria |
England |
This is a pretty little
geometrid moth whose flesh-coloured wings are adorned with
golden-brown "freckles" and a pink blush. |
|
Noble Nightfighter |
Zophopetes
nobilior |
Kenya |
A night-flying
skipper with a loud humming flight. Often attracted to
house-lights in Africa. |
|
Glad-eye Bush
Brown |
Nissanga patnia |
Sri Lanka |
The name is
derived from the eye-like markings on the upper forewings,
which appear to "wink" at the observer when the butterfly
flicks open it's wings. |
The Charismatic Metalmarks
Taxonomists are not usually renowned for having a great sense of
humour, but amongst their more hilarious moments they have
managed to provide us with a few amusing scientific names. Hence
we have a pair of metalmarks from Colombia, named by Hall and
Harvey in 2002 as
Charis ma
and
Charis matic
! Both have now been renamed rather less attractively as
Detritivora ma
and
Detritivora matic.
The new genus name refers to the fact that the caterpillars feed
on decaying leaves and other detritus on the forest floor.
The Mediocre
Skipper !
It must be difficult to think
up names for some of the more mundane looking species,
particularly for the hundreds of near-identical dull brown skipper
species found in the neotropics. In 1997 Austin was apparently so
unimpressed with his latest discovery that he gave a "new" Mexican
species the unfortunate name Inglorius
mediocris, which needs little translation !
More
"creative" scientific names...
The taxonomist Burns was
clearly having a mental block when it came to naming his new
skipper - Cephise nuspesez (
pronounced "new species" ) !
Just to prove that weird humour
is not confined to butterfly taxonomists ( ! ), here are some of
the equally odd scientific names given to other creatures :
|
Abra cadabra |
a species of clam ( with magical
properties ? ) |
|
Agra vation |
an "aggravating" carabid beetle |
|
Cyclocephala nodanotherwon |
a species of scarab beetle ( not
another one ! ) |
|
Heerz lukenatcha |
a species of braconid wasp : ( here's
lookin' at ya ! ) |
|
Kamera lens |
a protozoan, presumably shaped like a
camera lens ! |
|
Pulchrapollia |
an extinct parrot, translates as
"pretty polly" |
The above show
both creativity and humour, but in 1969 when Spencer had the task
of inventing names for new flies, it just came down to numbers,
hence :
Ophiomyia prima, O. secunda, O.
tertia, O. quarta, O. quinta, O. sexta, O. septima, O. octava, O.
nona, O. undecima, O. duodecima
( Latin for "first", "second",
"third", etc. )
They don't always get away with it
though. Common sense prevailed when Dybowski proposed the name
Gammaracanthuskytodermogammarus
loricatobaicalensis
for a new Amphipod
in 1927. It would have been the world's longest scientific name,
but was rejected by the International Commission for Zoological
Nomenclature !
The honour of having the longest
scientific name approved by the ICZN actually goes to a species of
Stratiomyid fly -
Parastratiosphecomyia stratiosphecomyioides,
while the shortest appears to be that of a Vespertilionid bat -
Ia io,
although there is a thrip with a single-letter species name -
Plesiothrips o.
Click here for a further selection of strangely named
butterflies.
For more fascinating scientific
names, visit :
Earthlink Taxonomic Puns
