I used to often go through lists, google searches, and so on looking for funny/weird animal names. I have made quite a few lists already, and I thought I would make a post here to see if some of you know some good ones. plants and fungi also welcome :) Here are some of my favorites that I can fin…

Similarly, there’s https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/35164-Hydrophis-platurus , the Yellow-Bellied Sea Snake. I think it sounds like an insult you’d hear on board a pirate ship.

Yep. It is a very descriptive name. It definitely looks like an overripe banana.

Should really have posted this at Christmas time, not the height of the northern hemisphere summer https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/186862-Ba-humbugi

Scientific name for thrush is turdus!

Naming something after something that has no name? The mind boggles! (Or at least mine does…) BTW, the Wikipedia entry for the Sin Nombre Virus gives a different account, but says it was originally named the Muerto Canyon (Death Canyon) Virus. So, either way it’s an interesting origin.

You could be right. I heard the story of how the Sin Nombre virus was named (from someone on the original study team) about 30 years ago but I might be misremembering it. There are a number of obscure little places in the Southwest U.S. that bear the name Sin Nombre.

Does extinct animals count? Paleontology is a goldmine of weird and funny names. Irritator challengeri (of course, this famous spinosaurid) – name derived from “irritation, the feeling the authors felt (understated here) when discovering that the snout had been artificially elongated” (by fossil po…

For funny and immature, Spinus pinus. I’ll leave the pronunciation up to you.

Funny, long, or just plain weird animal names

Nature Talk

bri-k June 8, 2021, 6:40pm 270

I like Boops boops. It’s not the weirdest, but it’s fun to say.

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Funny, long, or just plain weird animal names

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