There is a very unfortunate case about a bacterium that has an accepted name of “Myxococcus llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogochensis”.
This name was obviously chosen as a publicity stunt and makes a complete mockery of scientific procedure. No one can be expected to remember this name, write it down or pronounce it. The name of the town it is named after was also just chosen as a publicity stunt, (reasonable original and actually used name of the town in the title).
The entire point we have names for anything at all is so we don’t have to manually describe what we are talking about every time we mention it. You notice my manual description in this title is more practical than its actual name, but could potentially be ambiguous if another bacterium is associated with the town.
The name was accepted 2021. I cannot see how any reasonable person could do this.
Is there any way to campaign have this name declared invalid?
Personally, I think that the name is not too bad, since the location where the organism has been isolated first is associated with the mentioned place, so there is a connection - and probably fairly easy to remember - you just have to think of the place with the longest name (and probably look it up again, I know) and you will find the name of the organism, too…
" The species name has been criticized for not following recommendations in the International Code of Nomenclature of Prokaryotes, that specifies that long and difficult to pronounce names should be avoided.[5] Since the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology plays an important role in nomenclature validation,[5] some critics have argued that the species name can not be considered valid before being published in that Journal.[4] With its publication in a list in 2021, the name was confirmed as valid.[6]"
Changing scientific names is always something that should be avoided, if possible, since it usually causes more confusion than it helps. Hence, only if e.g., some of the criteria of naming or describing the species were not met, it would be a reason for changing the name.
We have to keep in mind, that things are being done a bit differently for different groups of organisms though… In botany, different than in zoology, and different again in other groups of organisms… In botany there was a decisionat this year’s International Botanical Congress in Madrid to decide that names can be changed, when they are offensive:
“This is the first time that botanists have voted on changing names that could be offensive. Their decision will eliminate a “c” in more than 300 scientific names of plants, algae, and fungi that include caf[e]r- and caff[e]r- . The one-letter change would mean removing references to caffra , an Apartheid-era slur used to discriminate against Black people in South Africa, in favor of affra and related derivatives, implying simply that the species has its origins in Africa.” (from this article in nature by * Rodrigo Pérez Ortega and Erik Stokstad)
We know from changes in taxonomy and revised names due to splitting and lumping how difficult it can be to follow the updated names - especially when it comes to working with older literature, papers and specimens in museums… So it makes sense to think twice when wanting to rename an organism…
I think the mentioned case of Myxococcus llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogochensis is a good thing - possibly a needed case that serves as an example to show a gap in the naming regulation - maybe there should be a maximum length for scientific names?
Perhaps to allow flexibility in naming, there should be no firm limit on the length of scientific names, but the organizations listed below could each adopt provisions that proposed names that exceed a specified length must undergo a special approval process by the governing organization. This process would consider whether the name is merited in some fashion, such as the location where the organism was discovered or other facts relevant to the situation at hand. The committee could also consider whether the organism is likely to become a subject of frequent research or discussion, in which case a lengthy name might present a burden.
This concern mirrors one of the most famous “feuds” in insect taxonomy history- that of Meyrick and Kearfott in the early 1900s. Kearfott named a bunch of moths with “nonsense names” in 1907, which Meyrick thought would be impossible to remember and keep straight. So in 1912, he published this paper which sought to re-name them out of principle. He began,
“In a paper published in the Transactions of the American Entomological Society, Vol. xxxiii, 1907, by Mr. W. D. Kearfott, on new species of Tortricina, are a number of specific names which are openly and obviously based on a barbarous and unmeaning gibberish, and in my opinion must be rejected as null and void. They are given below, and carry their condemnation on their face. If a name is without meaning and only consists of a chance arrangement of letters, memory, deprived of the clue afforded by sense, in unable to recall the name with accuracy, since the letters might just as well have been arranged otherwise; hence on every occasion reference would have to be made to the original authority for verification, an intolerable burden and great hindrance to scientific work… A line must be drawn somewhere, and for my part I propose to draw it here and now. I refuse to accept these names, and shall quote them as synonyms with the syllable (van.) attached, signifying that they are void.”
He then went on to re-name all the “gibberish”-named moths himself.
Here we are 100 years later, and the result has been that Kearfott’s gibberish names still stand, as they were the first names published. All of Meyrick’s names are synonyms, and his paper “On some impossible specific names in micro-lepidoptera” stands both as a humorous anecdote in the history of nomenclature, and as a cautionary tale that trying to change species epithets on the grounds that they’re annoying and hard to remember is an exercise in futility.
Granted, this all happened in the world of Zoological naming, so perhaps things are different in the Prokaryote world (they need more name letters to compensate for their lack of membrane-bound organelles?). But aside from spelling changes, full-on scientific name changes based on names being hard to remember has at least a 100-year history of being rejected.
Thank you for sharing, it is a gem! I can recommend taking a look at the article, it is a great read (including the list of names, ideally reading the species epithets out loud)! The article starts on page 32 of the abovementioned publication, page number referring to the original publication, but to the online-document.
I’m with Mr Meyrick. They’re very silly, just rhyming noises. I thought they were supposed to mean something that describes the species! At least Llanfair… means something.
I liked the banana one though, I’d let Kearfott have that one
This name might be bad, but what about Schoenoplectus? Hesperoyucca? Whoever comes up with names more than 10 letters long should be mandated to write them 1000 times on a wet field sheet when it’s 45 degrees and windy out.
Things like six letter codes and such do help some, but some of the names really do show a sort of silly contempt for field ecologists or something.
Actually, it’s a very nice name. The plants are beautiful, too. To remember how to spell the name, practice the rhythm of the pronunciation, with the accents on the first and the fourth syllables, and it becomes almost musical. Then the spelling just flows naturally, like water.
not everyone speaks Greek so what difference does it make if they are common Greek words? The point is huge long names like that are unnecessary and inefficient. Given the multitude of phoenetically valid sound combinations that can be made there’s never a reason to have a 14 letter long species or genus.
i agree it sounds pleasant. But again, try writing it on a wet datasheet and you won’t be making music, you’ll be making other sounds. Though to be fair Hesperoyucca grows in fairly dry places so maybe that particular scenario is rare. But the original point is still valid. Should have left it Yucca. Or name it Yucco or something :D
In any event it continues to surprise me how little care there is by many taxonomists for any other groups who need to use species names. It seems odd to say the least. There are other things in the world beyond taxonomists wanting to choose any name they want for things, and changing them whenever they want.
Phoenetically valid for speakers of which languages? The particular combinations of sounds/letters that are easy to parse and pronounce and remember depend greatly on what one’s native language is.
Scientific nomenclature is used internationally – this means that regardless of what combinations are chosen, it is likely there will be some people who struggle with names that others find perfectly simple and comprehensible. If one were to choose only those combinations that sound good to everyone in all possible languages, this would result in a greatly reduced repertoire of available unique syllables, with the inevitable consequence that names would need to be even longer than they are already. Quite likely these combinations of syllables would become arbitrary (not attached with meaning in any language), making them difficult to remember.
14 letters doesn’t strike me as impossibly long (then again, I am accustomed to German, which writes compounds as a single word, so the average word length is somewhat longer than in English).
oh for sure, it’s meant to be valid in Latin (the other poster said Greek but maybe they meant Latin and i got confused?)
oh for sure, it’s a balance between short vs pronouncable sometimes. But those particular examples seem over the top to me. I guess some people like them, and don’t have to write them dozens of times, or else like spending a lot of time writing stuff. It’s an interesting idea that maybe users of languages that compound words, like German, might have less issue with such names. Doesn’t solve the issue with dealing with the long name for data management and such, though.
Scientific names are supposed to follow Latin word-formation rules (i.e., they take Latin endings and follow principles of gender agreement etc.). They are also limited to the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet – not all of which occur in the Latin language by the way – without any addtional characters or diacritics.
Apart from this, there is no requirement that the elements that make up the names be Latin in origin. In many cases they are based on Latin and Greek elements, often combining the two rather indiscriminately. But sometimes they may also use words from other languages, particularly in epithets derived from the names of people or places.
The example above of “Hesperoyucca” is indeed derived from Greek (hesperos meaning “evening” or “western”) and “yucca”, which is likely a Spanish adaptation of a Taino word.
I do sympathize with your frustration about names that seem needlessly long and complicated, but I also doubt it is reasonable to expect people describing new species to construct names based solely on the needs of field ecologists who are writing names in damp weather, given that the majority of the time names will be used under far less extreme conditions. I would imagine that the particular challenges of recording in the field encourages the development of general strategies like the use of shorthand and abbreviations that are relevant even for less unwieldy names as well as long ones.