Field of Science

Ye Gods I'm Immature

Sometimes when naming a species, it pays to be careful...

In 1954, Roewer described a new species of harvestman named Metagagrella mysoreana (so named, I assume, because it came from Mysore). Metagagrella has since been synonymised with the older genus name Psathyropus, but most of the appropriate new combinations have not yet appeared in print. I was just entering in names for the Psathyropus section of the Palpatores nomenclator, which requires me to form said new combinations. However, because Psathyropus is a masculine name, I had to correct species name genders.

Yep.

Psathyropus mysoreanus.

The fact that I giggled when I realised shows just how much of a child I am.

10 comments:

  1. I giggled too. Must make me childish as well! I also snigger at anything with the epithet superbum (not sure if "bum" is Antipodean slang for the buttocks in the way it is in the UK - maybe it's not so funny after all).

    My mother also thinks Megacervixsaurus is hilarious and I remember her making some (woefully palaeontologically inaccurate) joke about how it must have had awful PMS.

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  2. There's always room for more arse jokes in taxonomy.

    Julia, I get a giggle out of mispronouncing the specific epithet for the Cooktown orchid --- bigibbum. (Really, I should get out more.)

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  3. lmao, its ok to be a scientist and have a juvenile sense of humor. I was toying around with all sorts of funny latin names for my anemones. Try translating "regurgitated cheese" or "cheese-eating surrender monkey" (after a french friend) in latin!

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  4. You should submit this one to Mark Isaak's Curiosities of Biological Nomenclature, which has a section on apparent scatology.

    http://www.curioustaxonomy.net/

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  5. AHAHAHA!!

    You have to submit that here.

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  6. Mae Berenbaum, also an entomologist, had a hilarious section on insect species names. One guy did a whole series: katychysme, susichysme, and the like. No one had ever pronounced them until years later: Katy Kiss Me, Susy Kiss Me, and so on. (I probably have the feminine names wrong, but I remember the "kiss me").

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  7. Too funny. We need more names like that!

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  8. You should submit this one to Mark Isaak's Curiosities of Biological Nomenclature

    Technically, this combination hasn't yet appeared in print (though it's an inevitable consequence of the current taxonomy).

    I have to admit, I got a rather horrifying mental image from Megacervixsaurus. I suspect you have to have seen a lot of cows' back ends to share my pain.

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  9. Yes, please let me know when it goes to press!

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