Megapnosaurus?

Spudley writes: "I was tempted to put this under the humor topic, but I guess it's best here in science. An entertaining article in USA Today tells of how a beetle expert arbitrarily changed the scientific name of a dinosaur from "Syntarsus" (Latin: "fused ankle") to "Megapnosaurus" (Latin: "big dead lizard"). Dinosaur experts are (understandably) kicking up quite a fuss about it."

Comments

Don't Get Mad, Get Even

[John Hasler]

The dinosaur people should rename one of Ivie's species "little dead bug".

The beetle people are burning up the namespace. They should be required to name their critters with GUID's.

Or maybe the scientific community needs to reconsider the idea of globally unique species names. Who would be confused by a beetle and a dinosaur having the same species name?