I sense a desire among some iNatters to make iNat the go-to spot for cutting-edge taxonomy that hasn’t yet been fully accepted and for common names that aren’t really in use but might be preferred by some. That would seem to make iNat the place to go for names (if that desire is fully realized) when to me it should be just another user of accepted organism names from external sources. Or am I misinterpreting this?
4 Likes
I think, for many, it kind of already is a sort of “default” go-to source for names, as for most it will really be the only place they hear about a species, or at the very least a first place.
All names I add are sourced elsewhere.
Flag stuff like that whenever you see it, cultivar level names should not be on the species, that would be like having a species level name on a genus, like calling all Canis “domestic dog”
1 Like
and Greek. It is a made up language. Esperanto for scientists. (And so, who cares how you pronounce a mangled version of 2 dead languages, since it is Ancient not Modern Greek)
3 Likes
Exactly, that why I called it “Neo-Latin” and “basically a conlang” above.
1 Like
And just words that blatantly aren’t either with a latin-y ending… And often it seems like no one really understands the rules for what those endings are… certainly haven’t found a simple guide or anything for a non-professional
1 Like
Because there are no rules - ICZN only requires that scientific names be “a collection of letters”.
Well there must be some kind of rules, because people have discussions in flags about whether POWO, the original author, or inat has the correct ending or not every time I flag a taxon as ‘misspelled’ based on having a different ending than POWO.
1 Like
Plants might have different rules from animals.
1 Like
There are two sets of rules.
Planet Zoology and Planet Botany.
So Erica is a spider, or 850 species of heather in Cape Fynbos - depending on your planet.
2 Likes
there very much are rules, lots of them (and they differ for zoology, botany/mycology/phycology, etc.); re: zoological nomenclature/the ICZN, “a collection of letters” is far from the sole requirement for scientific names
1 Like
Hear ye, hear ye. I am answering on behalf of the tribe of the great untrained, those of us who showed up casually hoping to identify one thing.
(I stayed.)
FWIW, I prefer scientific names.
I do not see them as mysterious and off-putting strings of letters, and perhaps that is because I studied multiple languages in school, including Latin, and Attic Greek. French, Spanish, English.
Note that I am not unique in this. My husband, also a member of the great untrained, as well studied multiple languages, as did my sons and all our friends and their children, also members of the tribe of the great untrained. In the studies of the younger, however, sprinkle Japanese and Maya and take out the Greek. (I think they are no worse for wear; I only remember one word afterall, the one for thief, from which “kleptomania” is derived.)
Now, you might say, but are not there common names here where we live? Yes, of course. And they are different from those in other places of course.
We have Maya ones, like x’nuk, which is both an owl and a species of native bee, and Spanish ones, like brujita which is used for any rain lily because they seem to come up after a rain as if by magic. (Do not fret: only 36 species of Zephyranthes in Mexico!)
Therein the magic of the scientific name, easily explained to those who are not, in fact, formally trained in science! How do I know this? Because I have done so for many of my tribemates, whom I know, who enjoy taking apart the scientific names and remembering the languages we all studied years ago. “I think this base means…” “Yes, but this prefix…”
My friends also especially love to celebrate the species that end in yucatensis or mexicana or some such because we are also joyful and a little un-serious, being, as we are, members of the great untrained.
8 Likes
Ha! I can probably find a comic book from the 1970s in my attic that uses that name for brine shrimp in an ad. But I would not consider that source for a pet name as legitimate for use on iNat.
1 Like
I think (though I do not have a source), that more recently a lot of species names have been changed so species epithets agree with genus name in gender. But not every name has received that treatment as of yet:
Populus tremula has irked me for a while. -a is either female singular or neutral plural, neither of which make sense. It should really be Populus tremulus.
Oh. I must have misunderstood an earlier reply of yours regarding making up names then. In that case I haven’t said anything… :D
True (though Latin is not entirely dead). And I agree with pronouncing it however you like. After all, usually Latin is taught, pronounced like whatever language the class is natively speaking. I still think that with even just a bit of Latin and a few words of Ancient Greek, a lot of these names just make sense and it’s just fun thinking about the etymology sometimes. And it somehow makes me see the world differently. For example: Conifer—Conus (cone) and ferre (to carry). Conifers are cone-carriers. :D
2 Likes
Yes, but you are far from the average iNat user.
1 Like
The company that sells them maintains to this day that they are their own “species” of captive-bred hybrids and not an actual species of brine shrimp anyway.
A serious taxonomist should be able to verify or refute that. Purchase a set and they will have all the specimens they need.
2 Likes
I recall that Populus (like Morus) is considered feminine, so that is reflected in the specific epithets in that genus.
As I understand it based on this family tree original latin is dead dead; church latin is really a different, related language with the same name (common names again!?!)
1 Like
The company even has an (unpublished) scientific name they use for them, Artemia nyos.