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

Dinosaur scientists should get a sense of humor

[Violet Null]

For those curious about why the renaming is being done by a beetle guy...

Until now. Entomologist Michael Ivie of Montana State University in Bozeman, one of the scientists who noted that a beetle found in 1869 already had the name Syntarsus, sent a January corrective notice to the insect journal Insecta Mundi.

Under the rules of scientific nomenclature, Ivie and his colleagues were entitled to rename Syntarsus, as the ones who caught the mistake.

So you may not like the name. But the guy is following the rules. It's funny. Laugh.

Add -osaur

[guiding_knight]

I find this quite entertaining, and disturbing at the same time. Does this mean if I find a mistake in someones name chosen for a creature, I can rename some dinosaur yourmamasaur? :)

Honestly, I think the best, most scientifically reliable and polit thing to do would be to just add a suffix. Call it syntarsaur or syntarsusaurus, something along those lines. This probably does not follow any sort of species naming convention, but I'm sure a reasonable substitute could be found by adding something to the end (in latin, of course:). This would avoid a lot of inter-field animosity. Instead they chose to set a precedent of mocking other fields of science. This does not bode well for the effort to catalog all species. We could end up with some very odd names indeed.

Big "dead" lizard?

[jfengel]

My Greek is rusty, but "dead" would be "nekros". Is he going for "apnoi", "not breathing"? As in "big not-breathing lizard?"

Well, at least it's all Greek, rather than the usual Greek-Latin mush (e.g. tyrannosaurus).

Omnia Mihi Lingua Graeca Sunt.

Re:Big "dead" lizard?

[CaptainCarrot]

Yes, it's really "big breathless lizard", and it's Greek, not Latin as the article states.

But tyrannosaur isn't a "Greek-Latin mush". "Tyrannos" is Greek, although as "tyrannus" it was eventually taken up into Latin. But that was later, it was Greek first, and was famously applied to the absolute rulers of the Archaic period. Perhaps you're thinking of something like "australopithecus", which is Latin "australis", "southern" + Greek "pithekos", "ape.

I thought scientific names...

[V. Mole]

...included family/genus/species as well (e.g. homo habilus vs homo sapien), so how can a beetle name conflict with a dinosaur name? And if they do conflict, why is there an "elephant beetle"?

Microphallus Schmidti

[JMZero]

- the name given a fish-gut parasite. Apparently the discoverer was not fond of a colleague named Schmidt.

And we're all familiar with the owl-lice species "Garylarsoni"....

I think not-very-scientific names are common and inevitable. There are only so many descriptive Latin words. And for most of these species, the name is pretty much a sequence number - very few will instantly bring to mind the actual species.

I think "Big Dead Lizard" is a pretty reasonable alternative really.

.

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?

The rules rule

[Anonymous Coward]

The rules rule and the entomologist has done what is expected of him. I have done the same thing and would do it again. The paleontologists were sloppy in not doing there homework first.

The codes for zoology and botany can be found at:

Zoology
http://www.iczn.org/code.htm
(older [1995] on-line draft at http://zeus.ruca.ua.ac.be/EvolutionaryBiology/coll /doc/iczn4txt.htm)

Botany
http://www.bgbm.org/iapt/nomenclature/co de/SaintLo uis/0000St.Luistitle.htm

and

http://www.ishs.org/ord/code.htm

Re:The rules rule

[Lars T.]

Ohh, I can see it: In 1969, Paleontologist Mike Raath of South Africa's Bernard Price Institute for Palaeontological Research names a dinosaur without typing "http://www.iczn.org/code.htm" into his computer first - I wonder why.

OTOH one has to wonder why Mr. Bughunter didn't type "Mike Raath Bernard Price Institute" into Google, click on the 2nd hit to find that

Mike is a vertebrate palaeontologist with a special interest in dinosaurs. He is a former Director of the BPI who left in 1987 to become Director of the Port Elizabeth Museum. On his retirement from there in 1995 he returned to the Institute as Curator of Collections. His research interests remain focused on the fauna of the Late Triassic / Early Jurassic Elliot Formation - particularly the dinosaurs.

- and has an Email-address.

Then again, why didn't Raath simply name it Syntarsussaurus?