A few minutes ago I did an ID for Tradescantia zebrina… Which has stripes… Like a zebra. Somehow my brain didn’t register that until just now.
What’s your favourite organism named for another organism? (Scientific or common name). The sillier the better!
All kinds of other fish like butterfly fish, elephant fish. Elephant seals and elephant shrew for mammals. Herring gull, Acryllium vulturinum, Linnaria cannabina for birds. Pieris brassicae, Aglais urticae, Kleidocerys resedae.
Checking the list I found some, seems it’s gonna be a normal thing for plants to be named after other plants.
Argentina anserina, Glechoma hederacea, Medicago lupulina, Arctostaphylos uva-ursi, Salix capreamyrtle, Silene flos-cuculi, Iris pseudacorus - for plants.
Vaccinium myrtillus after a cow and myrtle.
The copepod Pandarus rhincodonicus, only found on Whale Shark (Rhincodon typus) was named after the Whale Shark, its host.
My favorite animals happen to be the leopard seal and the goliath tiger fish
Leopard slug.
Thermopalia taraxaca, Rhodaliidae (Siphonophorae).
Okay that’s hilarious!
I may think of more, but the first ones that came to mind is Cercidiphyllum japonicum and Robinia pseudoacacia.
paired with a banana slug
Let’s not forget the huge proportion of all organisms that are named after individual organisms rather than species - that is, after people! ;-)
lol I take the controversial position that I dislike species being named after individual humans and was considering specifically asking for those not to be posted… but to each their own, if you have something amusing go for it
The day I realized the scientific name for the pill bug was Armadillidium vulgare was the day I stopped calling it “Latin name.”
Just to clarify, does this include animals named after made-up animals, like the Chimera?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimaera
Chimaeras [1] are cartilaginous fish in the order Chimaeriformes , known informally as ghost
sharks , rat fish , spookfish , or rabbit fish ; the last three names are not to be confused with rattails, Opisthoproctidae, or Siganidae, respectively.
as when bonaspei (which means Cape of Good Hope
was changed to merianella (a botanist …
The dragonfly genus Erpetogomphus (Ringtails, family Gomphidae) – which itself is a reference to reptiles based on the colorful snake-like markings of these insects – includes multiple species (most of the species in the genus, as I recall) named for existing or former snake genera: E. lampropeltis, E. heterodon, E. eutainia, etc.
Many common names of various butterfly species are named after birds,
eg. Common Jay (Graphium doson), Common Gull (Cepora nerissa), Chocolate Albatross (Appias lyncida), Blue-spotted Crow (Euploea midamus), Peacock (Aglais io), Giant Owl (Caligo memnon), etc etc.
Certain aquarium fishes in the Cyprinidae (minnows) are called “sharks” – the red-tail shark (Epalzeorhynchos bicolor), the black shark ( Labeo chrysophekadion), and the tricolor shark ( Balantiocheilos melanopterus).
