Funny, long, or just plain weird animal names

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 find right now:

I am also going through iNat taxonomy looking for weird names, so here are some of the best I have found so far:

44 Likes

Someone has an entire project, or I think actually a checklist dedicated to this very topic. Not sure how to find it though ? Does anyone recall it ?

6 Likes

I could come up with a long list just from Peterson’s moth guide to the Northeast U.S.

Some judgmental-sounding favorites include (but there are so many!!!):
Exasperating Platynota
Confused Eusarca
Impudent Hulda
Deceptive Apotomis
Derelict Eucosma/ Pelochrista
Dirty Notocelia
Wretched Olethreutes

This one field guide provides hours of endless fun in this department. I’ll offer some more later.

8 Likes

just a little while ago i was amused by
Unicorn Leatherjacket

8 Likes

Inaccessible Island Rail

18 Likes

I think that is on my list from when I looked through all of Wikipedia’s bird taxonomy looking for funny names ;)

2 Likes

I think that was @sea-kangaroo you’re thinking of:

But there’s also:

8 Likes

I like this prompt.

9 Likes

Mussels have some amazing ones:
Wartybacks, including the Three-horn Wartyback
Fatmuckets, like the Rough Fatmucket
Heelsplitters, like the Texas Heelsplitter
Pigtoes
and the Sheepnose!
I’m sure there are lots more…

8 Likes

speaking of birds:

Goatsuckers, Blue-footed Boobies , anyone? I better cut it off there or else bird name jokes get pretty rated “R” pretty quickly.

6 Likes

Agh, how can I forget the California Bonfire?

5 Likes

Invisible Rail - No sightings on iNat, which I suppose makes sense.

Also, when I first got into birding, I was shocked to learn that Yellow-bellied Sapsucker is a real animal and not something my father made up.

22 Likes

Welcome!

My parents were ornithologists, so I was always into birding, but my Mom tells a similar story of not believing my Dad when he claimed he saw a Blue-grey Gnatcatcher.

5 Likes

One that I really like is Poecilotheria metallica aka Gooty sapphire ornamental (tarantula).
Also the New mexico whiptail, also known as the Leaping lesbian lizard, which posses the ability of parthenogenesis, meaning the all female population can reproduce!

6 Likes

Well, I guess we finally figured out the real identity of the chupacabra… So much for its being a mammal.

The best wasp example I can think of off the top of my head in terms of common names:

A few pop culture references in common names:

Also, a few pop culture references in scientific names:

8 Likes

My friend Doug Yanega put together a list of curious scientific names.

http://cache.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html#Curious%20Scientific%20Names

4 Likes

An entire genus of spiders with species names for Orson Welles characters or movies. Example: Orsonwelles malus, named for Welles’ 1958 film Touch of Evil.

6 Likes

Apparently this is a thing among spider taxonomists, as Helen Mirren and Judy Dench also get the treatment : Disnyssus

5 Likes

Once I was reading a perfectly straight-laced paper about ecological restoration in Australia, and did a double take when they referred to a certain tree using the common name “snottygloble.”

8 Likes

Nice!
I hardly knew about any of these!
I think my favorites from those lists are:

11 Likes