By any other name: Finding the fun in Latin taxonomy

October 4, 2024

Shortly after we moved into our new (old) house in Holyoke, I noticed a shrub in our neighbor’s yard. It was covered in purpley-red fruits that looked like big blueberries, but attached by much longer stems. “Serviceberry,” said our neighbor, “because it blooms once the ground thaws, and folks who died in the winter can finally be buried in a spring service.” What elegant nomenclature, I thought. Just kidding. I probably thought something like, Huh. Does she know a good electrician? Why hasn’t she invited us over for muffins?

Sneaking back to her house with a plant ID app, I discovered that serviceberry is also known as sarvisberry, shadbush, shadwood, shadblow, juneberry, saskatoon, sugarplum, wild-plum and chuckley pear. And that’s just in English. (I guess. Chuckley pear?)

When you think about all the international and regional variants naming this perfectly nice, but not uniquely spectacular shrub, there must be hundreds of them. And as with all plants, you know somebody’s meemaw calls it “butterbrisket,” or “Jack’s suspenders.” It’s almost enough to make you grateful for the tedious, difficult system of binomial Latin roots codified by Swedish naturalist and proposer-that-humans-are-primates, Carl Linnaeus (1707-78).

Linnaeus is often called the “father of taxonomy” because he developed the nested hierarchy of two-part names we still use to categorize approximately all living things. His contributions to biology can almost not be overstated — polymath Johann Goethe once said only Shakespeare and Spinoza had been greater influences — but Linnaeus’ system seems to favor needlessly long, unpronounceable names that can exasperate even the most astute homo sapiens.

Luckily, if you were paying attention in Latin class, the names are often funny — judgmental, insulting, ribald, or just ridiculous. That’s the focus of a book called “The Naming of the Shrew: A Curious History of Latin Names,” by British naturalist John Wright. He tells us of Scatophagus argus — “many-eyed poop-eater,” a spotted fish undeserving of the designation. (Hold your fire, classicists — I know those are Greek roots — categorizing life demands more than one language.) And Selenophorus fatuus — “moon-carrying idiot” — a beetle that must have ticked off the wrong entomologist. Then there’s Diabolocatantops pinguis — “fat spur-faced devil” — evidently a grasshopper with an agenda.

Those who slept through Latin can still enjoy amusing names, not requiring translation: Turdus maximus (Tibetan blackbird), Pinus rigida (the noble pitch pines atop Mount Tom), and a genus of tiny mollusk called Ittibittium. There’s Kamera lens (microscopic flagellate), Ba humbugi (Fijian land snail), and Gelae donut (round fungus beetle). But without question, the most fun are the names that sound bawdy, but aren’t, among them, Phallus impudicus, whose common name, “stinkhorn,” is almost as bad, Rubus Cockburnianus (white-stemmed bramble), and Erica canaliculata (grey heather).

Many names, Wright points out, describe an organism’s appearance or location so completely you get sesquipedalian beauties like Gammaracanthuskytodermogammarus loricatobaicalensis, or “aquatic crustacean with hollow spines on its skin from Lake Baikal,” which, in fairness, does explain it. That little critter was considered to have the longest taxonomic name until it was deemed too complicated and invalidated. Nowadays, the breezy Parastratiosphecomyia stratiosphecomyioides (“like soldier-fly wasp, soldier-fly wasp-like,”) is considered the longest animal species name.

Sometimes, though, the descriptions — even of a thing you’re staring right at — are wrong. The poor pig-footed bandicoot, a shrew-y marsupial from Australia, was given the name Chaeropus ecaudatus — “pig-footed, without a tail” — by Major Thomas Mitchell, in 1836, who published his finding in a scientific journal. The only problem is that the pig-footed bandicoot does have a tail — or did — it’s likely extinct; its tail was sort of long, and looked like a lion’s, with a tuft at the end. Maybe Mitchell’s bandicoot got his chewed off in a tussle?

William Hooker made a similar error when handed a new type of flower found by Charles Darwin on a trip to Chile. Hooker named it Hydrangea serratifolia, “hydrangea with serrated leaves.” Unbeknownst to him, and likely to Darwin, that species of hydrangea has perfectly smooth leaves — his sample had been nibbled by worms.

Why not just rename the bandicoot and hydrangea and dozens of other misnomers? Because changing a scientific name is complicated; the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, which governs scientific animal names (there’s also a Code for plants, algae and fungi), prioritizes stability, above all. And they have a point: a single genus might describe thousands of species. Not to mention the centuries of literature, study, and, more recently, student loans that get poured into Lycopodium venustulum, alone. But change does happen, even in notoriously obstinate fields, and not just because of new knowledge provided by DNA sequencing. Many biologists are now pushing to redesignate species with offensive names — no small feat considering taxonomy’s roots in all-white, male-dominated, person-enslaving western Europe.

Despite the socio-cultural mess that arises from eponyms — species named after people — it’s surprisingly easy to call your newly-discovered mushroom after your brother, say, or a yellow TV sponge, as in Spongiforma squarepantsii, a fungus found in Malaysia. Hundreds of other luminaries have also been honored with species: Frank Zappa (jellyfish), and Greta Thunberg (fly, spiders, snails, frog, lichen, tardigrade), and Hugh Hefner (bunny, fittingly), and Oprah (Lichen) and Beyoncé (round-bottomed beetle), for starters. And more than a few reflect conflict, both interpersonal and political. In 1925, one Jewish paleontologist named a new species of trilobite after her co-worker, a Nazi sympathizer who espoused the belief that broad, flat head shapes denoted mental inferiority. She called the trilobite Isbergia planifrons, “Isberg” being her co-worker’s name, and “planifrons” meaning “flat head.”

So what of Amelanchier canadensis, the shadbush/juneberry/saskatoon/sugarplum/chuckley pear in my neighbor’s yard? And what of this business of needing to name everything we see, like Adam in biblical Eden? Perhaps the best summation comes again from Latin wisdom: A maioribus nomina, a virtuibus honore. From our ancestors comes our name, from our virtues come our honors. Then again, try telling that to Crepidula fornicata.

Rachel Quimby (she/her) is an Environmental Educator at Hitchcock Center for the Environment. She worked for many years in public radio before turning her efforts to teaching full time — you may have attended one of her science programs at the EcoTarium in Worcester. She loves that baby teeth and maple trees are both called “deciduous.”

Earth Matters has been a project of the Hitchcock Center for the Environment for 15 years. HCE’s mission is to educate and to inspire action for a healthy planet. Our Living Building and trails are open to all at 845 West St. in Amherst. To learn more, visit hitchcockcenter.org.

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