Funny, long, or just plain weird animal names

In Australia, we have a falcon species known as Falco longipennis.

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Keep going in that direction, and you eventually get common names that sound like they came out of a first edition Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual. :grin:

This is vaguely resemblant to Caribbean butterfly fish latin names.
Chaetodon capistratus is the Four-eyed Butterfly fish, known for its giant ocelli on its rear.
Chaetodon ocellatus does not have any ocelli. The closest thing to an ocellus found on it is a black spot present in juveniles.
I believe ā€˜ā€˜capistratus’’ comes from the line across the eye, which is also present on C. ocellatus, although I’m not that sure…

Also similar to the famous example of Common and Lesser nighthawks, being the common and not the Lesser to be called minor, and being the Lesser and not the Common to be called acutipennis (latin for ā€˜ā€˜acute wing’’), when the Common has very evidently way more acute wings than the Lesser.

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There are many species with the epithet ā€œlongipennisā€, which translates to ā€œlong-wingedā€ or sometimes ā€œlong-finned.ā€ In many cases, though, I don’t believe the species are named for the length of their wings or fins. For example, Pachydiplax longipennis has perfectly normal-sized wings.

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Yellow Fly of the Dismal Swamp

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Snaketongue Truffleclub

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Hyliaphora on YouTube has a playlist called ā€œMoths with Funny namesā€ with videos they made where they play music and show pictures of moths and their funny names to the beat

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This may already have been mentioned but there is this one, which is somewhat funny
Genus Gollum (Gollumsharks) Ā· iNaturalist Australia (ala.org.au)

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I’m sure there are some other fish I’m completely forgetting, but the Earmuff Wrasse always makes me smile when I see it. So glad they decided to name it the way they did instead of ā€œBlackspot Wrasseā€ or something
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/102061-Halichoeres-melasmapomus

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The Fused Orange Social Ascidian is actually an animal, although it doesn’t look like one.

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Yellow Fly of the Dismal Swamp. Really.

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Just ran across these funny moth names while looking up Microcrambus species. Apparently there is another moth genus in Tribe Crambini that is La. Species include:
La cucaracha (Błeszyński 1966) - Spanish for ā€œthe cockroachā€, also the name of a song
La paloma (Błeszyński 1966) - Spanish for ā€œthe doveā€, also the name of a song
La cerveza (Landry 1995) - Spanish for ā€œthe beerā€

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Rosy maple mothᯓᔣ𐭩
one of my favourite animals

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Contemplating copy-pasting these into the ā€˜If you could rename an existing species’ thread. :sweat_smile:

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I’m laughing so hard!

Evidently someone didn’t have a fun time discovering that species…

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I have heard of Yellowhammer, Winter Chippy, Blackcap and Little Snowbird, but none of the others. Always cool to learn some more! I also always wonder who came up with the name in the first place? I mean, Little Snowbird makes sense, but why would someone call a Yellow-billed Cuckoo a rain crow?

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I have recently come across the name Hylaeus pfankuchi. Pfannkuchen is German for pancake. These words are, IMO, too similar for the species not to have been named after pancakes.

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The ā€œ-iā€ at the end suggests it was named after a person.

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True. I did a bit of research. I assume it was named after Karl Pfankuch who was a German entomologist (specialising in ichneumon wasps), active during the time where Hylaeus was described.

The etymology for the surname Pfan(n)kuch states that it is an occupational surname for confectionaries. It does come from the word ā€œPfannkuchenā€ though.
So, at least Hylaeus pfankuchi was indirectly named after pancakes :D

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