Naming a Species

I wanted to follow up on my post about the furry "Salma Hayek" lobster with an article I discovered over at Outside Magazine. The lobster discovery and the naming of the new animal raises some interesting questions about how species get their names.

Well, turns out there is a method to the madness...and the method is madness. First of all, the whole species discovery thing is much more robust than I thought. I was under the false impression that the discovery of new species had largely dwindled since, say, the 19th century, when amateur naturalists trundled about the countryside discovering new species with each turn of the head. Well, yes, there were lots of animals to be discovered then, but it turns out some 17,000 new animal species, both extant and extinct, were added to the zoological record last year. An amazing number. And when it comes to naming them, well, as one scientist put it, "it's almost a complete free-for-all." Which means that people are free to name new species after any whimsical notion they have, any hero or fetish, including Han Solo, characters in the Muppets, and John Cleese. However odd that may sound, though, I love it. It shows scientists have a sense of humor.

Filed under: Arts and Culture, History, Learning