Prior to the early part of the 19th century, there was much confusion regarding the naming of extinct and extant organisms. Following the publication of the 10th 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
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