HUMOROUS SCIENTIFIC NAMES

Prior to the early part of the 19^th century, there was much confusion regarding the naming of extinct and extant organisms. Following the publication of the 10^th edition of the Systema Naturae by Linnaeus in 1758, rules were established and occasionally updated for the creation of binominal names (genus and species) of names (e.g., they have to be Latinized, the genus name is capitalized and the species name is lowercase). These rules, which are given in the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, have been adopted worldwide now and continue to fully utilized in modern times. In some cases, mild humor has made its way into the names.

In my career as a paleontologist, I have come across some humorous scientific names. Some are funny genera names, and some include funny associated species names. They are given below, with the author, the year the named was created, and some useful background information.

Agra cadabra Erwin, 1986—a carabid ground beetle.

Agra phobia Erwin, 1983, a beetle.

Agra vation Erwin, 1983—a carabid beetle from Peru.

Aha ha Menke,  1977—an Australian wasp.

Ba humbug Solem, 1983—a rare land snail endemic to the Ba District of the Fijian Island of Viti Levu. This snail is highly endangered because of deforestation and probably the influence of invasive species (Pacific rat, house mouse, and various ant species).

Chaos chaos (Linnaeus, 1767)—a giant amoeba.

Disaster L. Agassiz, 1835 [if pronounced like the word “disaster”]—a fossil echinoid.

Eurygenius LaFerté-Sénectére, 1849—an antlike flower beetle.

Extra extra Jousseaume, 1894—a marginellid marine gastropod, now referred to as Marginella.

Gelae Miller and Wheeler, 2004—[pronounced “jelly”]—a round-shaped beetle found in North America and Central America. There are four species:

   Gelae bean

   Gelae rol

   Gelae fish

   Gelae donut

Godzillius Schram, Yager, and Emerson, 1966—a crustacean.

Hallucigenia Conway Morris, 1977—a Cambrian animal from the Burgess Shale in British Columbia (see one of my previous posts).

Han solo Turvey, 2005—an Ordovician trilobite from China.

Hunkydora novozelandica (Reeve, 1859)—a marine myochamid bivalve of small size from New Zealand.

Ittibitium Houbrick, 1993—pronounced “it-tee-bit-tee-um”—a very small marine cerithiid gastropod.

Kamera lens (O.F. Muller) Patterson and Zölffel, 1991—pronounced “cam-era lens”—a single-cell micro-organism.

Lalapa lusa Pate, 1947—pronounced “la-la-pa-lusa”—a large, wasp-like insect in No. America.

Meomyia Evenhuis, 1983—[pronounced “me-o-my-e-ia”]—a flying insect in Australia.

Mini mum Scherz et al. 2019—one of the world’s smallest frogs.

Pieza Evenhuis, 2002—[pronounced “pizza”]—a fly from northern Venezuela. There are three species:

   Pieza kake

   Pieza pi

   Pieza rhea

Spongiforma squarepantsii Desjardin, Peay, and Bruns, 2011—a sponge-like, rubbery fungus found in Malaysia.

Ytu brutus—pronounced “you-too Brutus”—a Brazilian beetle in the genus Ytu Spanger, 1980.

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For additional comments about humorous or weird names, see:

Conniff, R. 1996. What’s in a name? Sometimes more than meets the eye. Smithsonian Magazine, pp.66-68, 70.

Judd, W. 2014. Weirdest species names.

 

https://www.australiangeographic.com 

Wikipedia.org was also very useful in researching the author information.               www.curioustaxonomy.net

CRUCIBULUM: AN INTERESTING SEA SNAIL

This post concerns two species found today in the tropical waters of the west coast of the Americas. They belong to Crucibulum Schumacher, 1817, a genus of sea snails (gastropods) that resembles some tide-pool limpets, but is not one. By the way, Crucibulum is also a genus of fungi (found in birds’ nests), but this usage does not conflict with Schumacher’s name because snails are classified in Kingdom Animalia.

Two species of Crucibulum are illustrated below. The first is Crucibulum umbrella (Deshayes, 1830), from the state of Jalisco, which fringes the Pacific Ocean in western Mexico. This species lives on wave-swept rocks at low tide. Three views are shown:

Dorsal, side, and ventral. Notice the conical internal “cup.” At its apex, it is attached to its shell, but this “cup” is otherwise free along its margin. Note: This specimen of C. umbrella is usually large. Most specimens of this species are less than 60 mm wide, but this specimen has a maximum diameter of 87 mm and is 23 mm tall (probably a world’s record for this species). 

The second species is Crucibulum scutellum (Wood, 1828) from Baja California (exact locality not know, but this species lives from Cedros Island, Baja California to Ecuador. This species lives on other shells on intertidal mudflats to offshore depths of 27 m. Three view are shown: dorsal, side, and ventral. Notice that the conical internal “cup,” which is  attached at its apex is also attached via a narrow, curving ridge (indicated by the red arrow). The illustrated specimen is 55 mm wide, 30 mm tall, and 75 mm in length.

   

At first glance, genus Crucibulum, the snail, resembles a limpet gastropod, but Crucibulum belongs to a wholly different group of gastropods. Crucibulum belongs to family Calyptraeidae, commonly referred to the “cup-and-saucer” sea snails. Fossils of this family have a geologic record extending back to the Cretaceous, and the geographic distribution of this family (with its lowly moderate number of genera) is widespread.