Posts tagged Nomenclature

When a new species or genus is described, authors (nowadays) usually provide an etymology for the name, essentially explaining why they named it the way they did.

The genus Parkerola was just described yesterday by Shûhei Nomura and Richard A. B. Leschen in The Coleopterist’s Bulletin to provide a new generic home for a previously described species, Parkerola gigantea (Broun), pictured above. Check out the etymology section for the new genus:

Etymology. This new genus is dedicated to the authors’ friends, Heidi and Joseph Parker, on theoccasion of their marriage and honoring Joe’s workon pselaphine inquilines. In early 2015, Joe and Heidi became parents of Jonah Wallace Parker (7 lbs. 10 oz.).

Heidi & Joe are great people and friends of mine (Heidi is a brilliant evolutionary biologist and one of my co-hosts on Breaking Bio, while Joe is an evo-devo biologist/beetle taxonomist), and that they were recognized with such a touching patronym warms my heart.

Taxonomists are sometimes portrayed as pedantic curmudgeons who don’t interact well with other researchers or the public, but in reality they are some of the most passionate, loving, and supporting people I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. On this #TaxonomyDay, I think this is a perfect example of how close-knit the taxonomic community truly is.

So thank you Shûhei & Richard for helping society better understand pselaphine rove beetles, and for infusing your work with a touching piece of personality.

Random thing I just stumbled across: a paper describing a new genus & species of soil mite (Osperalycus tenerphagus) is the most viewed paper in the Journal of Natural History. In fact, it has more views than the rest of the top 10 most viewed papers for the journal combined (which includes a touching memorial to Charles Darwin, and an important paper by Alfred Russell Wallace). 

But, why? Why would a taxonomic paper on an obscure soil mite from Ohio be the most viewed article in a journal with 176 years of history*? From what I can tell, it’s largely because Quentin Wheeler wrote about it in his blog at The Guardian. While probably less than a dozen people will ever see or collect this mite themselves, at least 10,000 people now know it exists thanks to social media and blogging.

I don’t want to read too much into this, I just think it’s an interesting example of social media’s potential to breathe new life and interest into disciplines like Natural History & Taxonomy. 

*Obviously this is only counting views since the papers have been put online & is skewed, but still.