The name sounds native, but it's not

How about the Spanish Flu virus?

Nobody’s sure yet where the virus originated, but it’s now known that there was an outbreak in a military base in Kansas prior to the newsreels labelling it Spanish. But that was hushed up, of course.

It’s also why when Covid hit, there was a lot of WHO pressure to resist assigning a nation label to the outbreak.

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Caryothraustes canadensis doesn’t occur anywhere near Canada. It’s a Neotropical rainforest species - as is the Cambridge Blue.

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The ‘Western’ in Western Honeybee makes sense as Europe is what the western regions were for thousands of years, and Europe is still considered a ‘Western’ part of the world.

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@rupertclayton provided a very informative reply in topic: Scientific v. Common Name regarding Spanish Clover (Acmispon americanus).

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I can’t find anything that says A. syriaca is native to Syria. Although, I wondered about the name, too.

One that usually stumps me is the common name of “Eastern”, which usually references the East Coast of the US. For example, Eastern Skunk Cabbage is native to the East Coast, as is Eastern Cottontail and Eastern Gray Squirrel. However, some, like Eastern Osprey and Far Eastern Smartweed tend to make me think the East Coast, however they are native to Australia and China, respectively.
Also, Gamochaeta pensylvanica is native to South America, Northern Catalpa is found nowhere near north in its native range, and Verbesina virginica isn’t even found in Virginia!

Finally, Virginia Meadowsweet isn’t even in Virginia, where it’s mainly found in North Carolina and West Virginia. Some just don’t make sense

Ironically, I came to the thread to mention species with common and scientific names related to Japan (japonicum, nipponicum, japanensis, nipponensis, etc.) and how that leads people to believe they’re native to Japan when that may not actually be the case. There are species present in/native to China or Korea that are named after Japan simply because that’s where the scientist who described the species was conducting their work.

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Lycaena phlaeas is native to North America, it just has a pretty insanely wide range across the entire northern hemisphere, I think small copper is generally the name used for its Eurasian range though?

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Is this why iNaturalist changed the common name of Erigeron karvinskyanus from Santa Barbara daisy (not native to Santa Barbara) to Mexican fleabane (native to Mexico)?

Klamath weed (common St. John’s wort) is another European introduction; just that early reports of its being problematic were in the Klamath area.

Likewise, Siam weed is native to Central and South America, and introduced invasive in Africa and Asia.

Many Hawaiian native species have variations of sandwichensis in their scientific names, since the Hawaiian Islands were once called the Sandwich Islands. However, Passerculus sandwichensis is not from the Hawaiian Islands; it is a North American species.

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Phidippus carolinensis
It’s found no where near North or South Carolina, but in the SouthWest US like TX.

When the Spanish Flu pandemic started at the end of WWI, there was no free press in countries involved in the war, where news of a pandemic spreading through military camps was actively suppressed.

Meanwhile Spain was neutral and had a free press. The Spanish press began discussing the pandemic freely, and gave the impression that it was only causing problems in Spain (by that stage it was widespread).

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I like Acaena novae-zelandiae, which actually came from Australia, though we succeeded in correcting the mistake when we eventually exported it as a weed to New Zealand.

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Chrysolina americana, the rosemary beetle is native to southern Europe

Boston Fern…nothing american about this and it applies to more than one species of fern…the one most distributed is a nonnative invaise asian tuberous sword fern. It is a disgusting marketing ploy and Home Despot and Lowes Home Destruction should be ashamed…walmart as well.

Another one…Lilaeopsis chinensis aka Marsh Lilaeopsis, Eastern Grasswort…despite the “chinensis” for a species name…it is not from china…it is native to the eastern US biome.
Who was in charge of naming things and why is this one not corrected yet is beyond me.

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The Surinam Cockroach is not native to Suriname, nor is it even especially prolific there (in fact, iNat has no recorded observations of a Surinam roach in Suriname, though I’m sure a lot of that has to do with iNat usage demographics more than the actual population of roaches). It’s native to Indomalaya and is now found pretty much anywhere warm enough to support their population, but it was first described in Suriname, so the name stays.

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I thought that Bermuda grass is native to southern Asia, but Wikipedia says it’s native to Asia, Europe, Africa, and Australia.

Schinus molle is often called the “California pepper tree” because it’s so widespread in California, but it’s actually native to South America. It’s invasive in California.

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Well, West Virginia was part of Virginia until the civil war, when they split off into their own state because they didn’t want to secede. So this common name makes sense.

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