I was looking at SDMB Member Doug Yanega’s home page, which includes a list of “curious scientific names,” and was reminded of something that I’d been wondering about.
My wife works part-time in a university natural science museum laboratory, and one of the grad students told her a little story about scientific names.
See, whoever describes a species first gets the honor of officially naming it. It’s considered gauche to name a species after yourself, so the describer will often cast around for some deserving person, or place, or event to name the species after; sometimes even finding something undeserving to name the species after (see Doug’s Web page, for examples).
Now, it’s well known that researchers have big ideas, and bigger egos, and so there tends to be other people in the scientific community that specifically dislike them, and they dislike in turn.
Therefore, goes this little story, researchers have been known to name species with some particularly offensive characteristic (like spitting poison, or emitting a foul odor) after another scientist that they specifically dislike. As a “compliment” that isn’t really complimentary at all.
Now, dang , this is a good story, but is it too good to be true? I wondered about this, and challenged my wife for a specific example. None was forthcoming. So: Has this ever happened? Or is it a BioNerd Urban Legend?
It certainly can’t always be true. Gary Larsen, creator of the sadly late ‘The Far Side’ had a blood tick named after him. I don’t know how much more offensive to a person you can get than naming one of those vile things after him, but Larsen thought it was pretty funny and was also honoured.
FYI, Harrison Ford has a spider named after him. Dunno if he’s honored or not.
With thousands of species being discovered, it’d be tough for a scientist to name them all after themself. (Conversely, comets are so rare that scientists do get the honor of having it named after them, if they so desire.)
When I took Zoology 18 (!) years ago, there were an estimated 1,000,000 species of animals; 900,000 were arthropods; 800,000 of those were insects; 600,000 of those were beetles. Now I think that first number is 3 or 4 million, with further exploration of the rain forests revealing more and more diversity than ever imagined.
Species fact: of the 4,000+ mammal species in the world today, over 1,000 are species of bats.
There were two paleontologists in the nineteenth century who hated each other’s guts. One of them put a brontosarus together backwards. One of them named fossilized fecal matter after the other guy, “Cooperlites”.
I note, upon rereading, that my OP was not as clear as I’d like it to be. The first few paragraphs were intended as background, while the real question was,
Has anyone ever named a species with some particularly offensive characteristic (like spitting poison, or emitting a foul odor) after a colleague that they specifically disliked?
And, carnivorousplant, I assume you’re kidding about the coprolites.
Really? A geologist told me that. Seems I read it, too. I remember a picture of a dinner party inside the reconstructed brontosarus. Can I trust no one?
BTW, are you guys proud that you can spell coprolite and I can’t?
Believe it or not; when I was an undergrad at Michigan State Univ. my advisor (Dr. John Holt) was the editor of Bergey’s Manual of Systematic Bacteriology http://server.mph.msu.edu/Bergeys/ this is a reference manual for microbiologist. It lists species, characteristics, etc. of bacteria. I asked him this exact question.
It is no longer acceptable (at least in microbiology) to name organisms after yourself. A committee of microbiologists pretty much decide on a name based on the biochemistry of the organism. Usually this means there a lot of Latin and Greek bases in the names (i.e. Pseudomonas ).
However, this was not always the case. There are lots of bacteria named for the discoverers including some of the most vile! These include: Nisseria gonorrhoeae, discovered by Neisser, and is the causitive agen of Gonorrhea, Yersiniea pestis, discovered by Yersin and causes Plauge, and Rickettsia rickettesii, discovered by, you guessed it, Ricketts (how’s that for ege) and causes Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever.
Anyway, the answer to the question was something along these lines:
Scientist have EXTREMELY overdeveloped egos. They would rather live in infamy than not be remembered at all. So although I’m sure it’s happened, most scientist would rather name it after themselves regardless how disgusting than to allow a competitor to be remembered at all.
hey, could be true - if the guy hated him that much,he’s mispronounce it like to show what he thought of him - full of the geologist’s equivalent of BS!
There is also a problem with naming genes. Many times genes are discovered before a function can be assigned to them. More and more scientists are starting to name genes after bizarre things.
One example is a gene that was found to be crucial in the embryonic development of the spinal chord named “sonic hedgehog”. Yup. That’s the offical name of the gene.
No worries, biorat. I’ve worked with enough science egos in my day to know where you’re coming from. When I was a virologist, the gene I was studying had six completely different names. Our lab had one name for it, the University of Chicago lab called it something else, Scottish labs had yet another name for it, and two investigators over the age of 70 had yet another archaic name for it. Nobody wanted to yield.
J. B. Smith, who was department of entomology chair here at Rutgers during the turn of the century, was often in very public disputes with another entomologist named Dyar. Now I don’t remember the insects involved, but both worked with mosquitoes (I’ll try to find the species involved).
Dyar, poking fun at Smith’s size, gave the species name of rotunda to one insect. Smith fired back by giving dyarria as a species name to another.
You’re probably thinking of the dinner party held inside a reconstructed iguanodon. That happened in 1853, when dinosaurs were first becoming known. The sculptor didn’t have enough evidence of what an iguanodon looked like, and in those days dinosaurs were thought to be lizardlike, so he built it as a quadruped.
Carniverousplant, the book I read was called The Riddle of the Dinosaur, by John Noble Wilford. Don’t know if it’s what you read, but it’s worth reading in any case.
This naming priviledge isn’t just for critters and comets, but chemistry as well.
All molecules have very proper, formal names which follow a systematic naming convention. Many also have common names, often chosen by the person discovering it.
As the story goes, the guy who discovered a class of compounds with sedating effects, chose the name Barbituate in honor of his mistress Barbara, or something.
Presumably, his wife was greatly offended for not receiving the honors, and the mistress wasn’t too thrilled for a downer to be named after her.
