Curiosities of biological nomenclature

[giganotoigauana]

thought id share this since it was so interesting

www.curioustaxonomy.net/

[Libraraptor]

Great site!

By the way, wasn´t the first real dinosaur name "Scrotum humanum"? The Megalosaurus bone end they found was thought to be human, well, balls and thus called "Scrotum humanum".

[tetonbabydoll]

Yup, pretty much. Nicely detailed drawing of 'em too....

[[][][]cordylus[][][]]

The original ballsacksaurus ;D

[deanm]

There are a number of other funny names including one species of Blackfly that was named for Hugh Heffner (of Playboy fame). The blackfly in question has two large conical projections on the pronotum (top of the first thorax segment)... enough said for sake of all the children

[deanm]

Another one (my personal favorite) is the specific epithet for a mite (chigger) found in the genus Trombicula.

Trombicula fujigmo Philip and Tucker, 1950

"fujigmo" is an acronym for a famous WWII phrase uttered by many a US service person.

The story goes along the lines that one of the two above named gentleman was a US Navy Doctor stationed in Japan shortly after WWII (one of the smaller tropical island in the Japanese arch (not the one of the main 4)). He discovered that the un-named chigger was the vector of a typhus (or some other chigger borne disease). The local Japanese authorites petitioned to have him stay on the island to study the mite and the disease. He was scheduled to rotate back Stateside in a few days. His response was to name the mite "fujimo" which has a nice Japanese ring to it until you realize that it means "Fu**-You Jack I Got My Orders".