# What to do about species with offensive names? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 25, 2023, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-about-species-with-offensive-names/990650 "2023-09-25T01:51:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2023, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-about-species-with-offensive-names/990650/1 "2023-09-25T01:51:05Z")
So TIL about this absolute shit show: > **[Neo-Nazis Are Pushing This Beetle to the Brink of Extinction](https://www.thedailybeast.com/neo-nazis-are-pushing-the-hitler-beetle-to-the-brink-of-extinction)** > > Some scientists are pushing for a species named after Hitler to be re-named. It turns out that: A: In the 1930s an Austrian entomologist named a beetle after Adolf Hitler B: Said beetle is being hunted to extinction by Neo-nazis because of its name. So ignoring the absolute WTAF that there are enough neo-nazis around who are stupid enough to hunt an arbitrary beetle because its named for hitler (I mean its not actually a nazi beetle dumb-asses, just some dumb nazi in the 1930s decided to call it that), for it to be threat to the survival of the species (the beetle species that it is, not that it bodes well for our species either). Should we rename species because they have offensive names? Obviously this one is an outlier (its both clearly offensive to _everyone_ and actually threatening the species itself) but I am sure there a lot of species names out there that would be offensive to a lot of people. My feeling is, kinda no, despite this case. This isn’t a statue or a something named “in honor” of anyone, in theory at least. Scientific names are just arbitrary names chosen in a dead language to unambiguously identify a species, they aren’t mean to honor anyone (I get that scientists have tended to ignore that on occasion, particularly recently, and the people they’ve chosen have not necessarily been either nice people or had anything to do with the culture or region the species is found in). But on the other hand this poor fecking bug is named after Hitler and being hunted to extinction because of it. WTAF! ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2023, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-about-species-with-offensive-names/990650/2 "2023-09-25T01:58:12Z")
I actually sort of like the idea of neo-nazi idjits killing their idols. And of them idolizing a critter that amatuers could easily mistake for a roach. I’m not a fan of only caring about “charismatic megafauna”; that’s junk too. But the symbolism of the neo-nazis hunting their own kind to extermination is just too rich not to encourage. ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2023, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-about-species-with-offensive-names/990650/3 "2023-09-25T01:59:09Z")
Etymologist? Or entomologist? I suppose it depends on whether his job was thinking up names based on word origins, or studying insects… ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2023, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-about-species-with-offensive-names/990650/4 "2023-09-25T02:00:25Z")
Do the people who study the origin of insect naming get called entometymologists or etymentomologists? Hmmm. 😜 ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2023, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-about-species-with-offensive-names/990650/5 "2023-09-25T02:01:33Z")
> [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](#): > > Etymologist? Or entomologist? Doh, isn’t there a Far Side about this? Edited the OP 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2023, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-about-species-with-offensive-names/990650/6 "2023-09-25T02:03:22Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > I actually sort of like the idea of neo-nazi idjits killing their idols. And of them idolizing a critter that amatuers could easily mistake for a roach. I like the idea that the bugs are going to have to be like “OK, I know we don’t normal get involved in human politics, but this time those bloody nazis are targeting us. We have them out numbered, and we’re gonna have to join antifa” 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2023, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-about-species-with-offensive-names/990650/7 "2023-09-25T02:04:22Z")
As for the question, I don’t have strong feelings either way, and it probably helps that I can’t think of any obviously offensive names of animal species; but _in general_ I think we are better off without examples of offensiveness in our world, and so I would _in general_ support renaming. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2023, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-about-species-with-offensive-names/990650/8 "2023-09-25T02:18:20Z")
If a finch is named after Darwin that’s one thing. But I think the whole practice of naming species after completely _irrelevant_ people is moronic. Changing it would be a mammoth task, there are a vast number. [List of organisms named after famous people (born 1950–present) - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_organisms_named_after_famous_people_(born_1950%E2%80%93present)) I suppose part of the problem is that there are just so many species of beetles, spiders, trilobites etc. that it’s difficult to devise descriptive names. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2023, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-about-species-with-offensive-names/990650/9 "2023-09-25T02:22:39Z")
I’m surprised their keeping of the Hitler Beetle is driving it to extinction. Shouldn’t Neo-Nazis be cultivating the beetle and spreading its species far and wide instead? ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2023, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-about-species-with-offensive-names/990650/10 "2023-09-25T02:40:46Z")
Holy Hell! ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2023, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-about-species-with-offensive-names/990650/11 "2023-09-25T02:42:35Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > Scientific names are just arbitrary names chosen in a dead language to unambiguously identify a species, they aren’t mean to honor anyone (I get that scientists have tended to ignore that on occasion, particularly recently, and the people they’ve chosen have not necessarily been either nice people or had anything to do with the culture or region the species is found in) Oh, they’ve been doing it for a while, tends to come and go in waves – it’s not like there is actually a _rule_ that you should not refer to celebs living or dead when naming species. Alexandre Girault in the 19teens named a whole boatload of insects after what seems like every writer, artist or celebrity figure he could remember including Zola, Beethoven, Aeschylus, Longfellow, Edison, Herbert Spencer, Poincaré, Albert I, Lincoln, Tolstoy, Mendeleev, Newton, Dante, Shakespeare, daVinci, Raphael, Hegel, Kant, Thomas Paine, Milton, Plato, Bach, etc., often using them both for genus names AND for species names AND repeating species names in different genera. From the bio online, something of a crank and later taxonomists had to do a bit of clean-up. Tradition has tended to be that you honor the name of a scientist involved in identifying or studying the species or the field or a figure iconic to the region’s culture or history, but already in the 19th century they were often doing that bit of giving names after a current patron or ruler. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2023, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-about-species-with-offensive-names/990650/12 "2023-09-25T02:54:12Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > Should we rename species because they have offensive names? It happens quite a bit AFAICT, although more often by deprecating/replacing common names in a particular language than by changing official Latin (Linnean) names of species. [Here’s one description](https://profjoecain.net/changing-offensive-names-taxonomy/) of how official scientific nomenclature works. The most recent example I can think of is [last year’s adoption by the Entomological Society of America of the new common name “spongy moth” for the species it used to call “gypsy moth”.](https://entsoc.org/publications/common-names/spongy-moth#:~:text=In%202022%2C%20the%20Entomological%20Society,range%20and%20French%2Dspeaking%20Canada) There’s been no change to the species’ Linnean name Lymantria dispar. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2023, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-about-species-with-offensive-names/990650/13 "2023-09-25T03:07:47Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > I’m surprised their keeping of the Hitler Beetle is driving it to extinction. Shouldn’t Neo-Nazis be cultivating the beetle and spreading its species far and wide instead? Heh, you seem to be assuming that neo-Nazis have the intellectual interest and capacity to nurture and propagate a rare insect population, which I think may be an overoptimistic assessment. - The blind cave beetle species called Anophthalmus hitleri is [apparently found in only about 15 cave sites in central Slovenia.](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/fans-exterminate-hitler-beetle-6232054.html) (And that was as of 2006; extinction danger is probably worse nowadays.) - The Hitler stans who “collect” this beetle are not only looters but thieves, stealing from existing collections as well as destroying the wild population: > [@](#): > > Martin Baehr, a beetle expert at The Bavarian State Collection of Zoology, said: “There is a complete run on these creatures, and collectors are intruding on the beetles’ natural habitat to get hold of them.” With a perfectly preserved specimen changing hands on the international insect market for as much as £1,200, poachers will apparently stop at nothing to get hold of the arthropods. > > The Bavarian State Collection of Zoology, a Munich-based research organisation that houses one of the largest natural history collections in the world, has had almost all of its Hitler beetle specimens stolen. The thieves, say experts, are not all Nazi sympathisers, but entrepreneurs wanting to cash in on the lucrative Nazi memorabilia market where SS signet rings can fetch hundreds of pounds and a Hitler autograph, thousands. […] > > Slovenian biologists have already called for the closure of the caves where Hitler beetles live, to prevent amateur collectors flocking to the area each summer to hunt them down. Others have considered renaming the species to make the beetles less attractive to neo-Nazis. > > Although the Hitler beetle is already protected under Slovenian law, and all insect collecting in the country is banned, poachers only have to make it the few miles to the Italian border, where insect hunting is still permitted. - Maybe a little public ridicule would decrease the appeal of this “collector’s item”? “The Hitler blind cave beetle” is not actually that impressive as a natural-history monument. > [@](#): > > Some biologists have suggested that Sheibel’s naming of a blind beetle after the Führer was, in fact, an attempt to ridicule him. Such antics aren’t unimaginable. Last year, three newly-discovered types of slime mold beetle were named after members of the current US administration: A bushi, A cheneyi and A rumsfeldi. All done with the greatest of respect, of course, claim the scientists at Cornell University, who named them. ETA: Although the article I first linked makes some good points about resisting changes to Linnean taxonomy for the sake of nomenclatural stability, I think there’s a case to be made that different standards should apply when a particular name is not just offensive to modern sensibilities but is actively endangering the organism’s existence. Rename the Hitler beetle after a prominent Jewish scientist or something, that should slow the nazis down a bit. ---
**Author:** ![wguy123](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wguy123/32/3161_2.png) [@wguy123](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wguy123)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2023, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-about-species-with-offensive-names/990650/14 "2023-09-25T03:14:43Z")
Although the “Squawfish” isn’t the official name, nor the scientific name, it is now referred to as the Northern pikeminnow. There has been a lot of changing of names in this region with those sorts of derogatory names, and I’m all for it. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2023, 9:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-about-species-with-offensive-names/990650/15 "2023-09-25T09:09:51Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > Should we rename species because they have offensive names? Yes > [@griffin1977](#): > > Scientific names are just arbitrary names You make the best counter-argument to your own position - if they are arbitrary, they can be changed arbitrarily. Scientific names get changed all the time. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2023, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-about-species-with-offensive-names/990650/16 "2023-09-25T11:26:56Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > But I think the whole practice of naming species after completely _irrelevant_ people is moronic. I would totally understand naming a species after Hitler if it had a mark that looked like a little mustache. > [@Kimstu](#): > > The most recent example I can think of is [last year’s adoption by the Entomological Society of America of the new common name “spongy moth” for the species it used to call “gypsy moth”.](https://entsoc.org/publications/common-names/spongy-moth#:~:text=In%202022%2C%20the%20Entomological%20Society,range%20and%20French%2Dspeaking%20Canada) I’m annoyed whenever they change the well-known, long-established name of something, whether it’s a building, a ballpark, or an insect. If I recognize the new name at all, I think, “_Oh_! You mean…” ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2023, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-about-species-with-offensive-names/990650/17 "2023-09-25T12:03:56Z")
Neo-Nazis wasting time killing innocuous bugs? _Meh_. But, why not take the idea of fanatics killing animals with names that irritate them and put it to good use—killing vermin? For example, let’s rename Rattus rattus (rats) to Rattus adolphus, Blattella germanica (German cockroach) to Blattella trumpanica, and Cimex lectularius (bed bugs) to Cimex kardashianius. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2023, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-about-species-with-offensive-names/990650/18 "2023-09-25T12:36:22Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > I would totally understand naming a species after Hitler if it had a mark that looked like a little mustache. Probably safer to name it after Charlie Chaplin. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2023, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-about-species-with-offensive-names/990650/19 "2023-09-25T12:45:10Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Scientific names get changed all the time. True — but there’s an inherent interest in keeping taxonomic names the same when possible. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2023, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-about-species-with-offensive-names/990650/20 "2023-09-25T13:00:41Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > there’s an inherent interest in keeping taxonomic names the same **when possible.** I bolded the relevant part. Yes, there’s _some_ interest in continuity, but other concerns can, and do, outweigh that interest. There are many times when this is obviously or by general agreement _not_ possible - the generic name changes, or some new find leads to reclassification, or further examination shows another name has precedence (or not - see _Brontosaurus_ disappearing and reappearing). And in particular, there’s nothing magical about particular full binomina, they’re not as intimately tied to their reference taxonomy as their generic part is. What matters is that the specific epithet is unique in its species, not what exactly it is. Bonus points if it’s anatomically or behaviourally descriptive, IMO. Holding on to offensive specific epithets just for inertia’s sake is bad application of the conservative principle. It says that some already-arbitrarily-applied-and-situationally-overrideable notion of continuity is more important than humane concerns. Basically, “fuck your feelings”, but in Latin. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-about-species-with-offensive-names/990650.md?page=2)