A Desperate Plea, Please Name Something After Me

July 17, 2008 3 comments

My biggest goal in my life right now is to have a species named after me. Stephen Colbert just demanded and got a spider named after him and I think it is my turn.

I’m not against other things being named after me. The most “honorable” way would be to discover a comet. The first discover has the comet named after them. However, it is hard to compete with the automated observatories now. Automated sky survey LINEAR has 236 comets named after it. Honorable may not be the way to go.

My biggest hope for scientific immortality without doing something crazy like groundbreaking research is to find some poor soul describing new species who ran out of ideas for names. Really, something named after me would be much better than a list of tortricid moth species like this:

Eucosma bobana, E. cocana, E. dodana, E. fofana, E. hohana, E. kokana, E. lolana, E. momana, E. popana, E. rorana, E. sosana, E. totana, E. vovana, E. fandana, E. gandana, E. handana, E. kandana, E. mandana, E. nandana, E. randana, E. sandana, E. tandana, E. vandana, E. wandana, E. xandana, E. yandana, E. zandana, E. nomana, E. sonomana, E. vomonana, E. womonana, E. boxeana, E. canariana, E. floridana, E. idahoana, E. miscana, E. subinvicta; Kearfott, 1907

Right now, I have two possibilities. I know two taxonomic researchers. One is doing work on fungus gnats (which include those tiny black flies that appear near over-watered houseplants). He has some specimens from the Bolivian rainforest that he is planning on describing. He is also going to be collecting fungus gnats here in Nevada.

The other possibility is a guy I met doing work on Mexican scorpions. Having a scorpion named after me would be very cool (and the tattoo would be much better) but I’ll be happy with the fungus gnats.

Now before you tell me, “Hey, biologists aren’t supposed to name newly discovered species after their friends. They’re supposed to name them after after some trait of the species.” Here is a whole list of species named after famous people. Hopefully, the situation will be more like:

Sylvilagus palustris hefneri Lazell, 1984 (Lower Keys marsh rabbit) An endangered rabbit named after Playboy founder Hugh Hefner.

and not like:

Malo kingi Gershwin, 2007 (jellyfish) Named after Robert King, who died after being stung by it.

Ministry of Astronomy, Ministry of Biology none

#1 | Written by Mathew about 3 years ago.

I don’t know who you are, but I have recently been in correspondence with a number of ornithologists, and the result of my findings of homonyms will lead to the publication of at least one nomen novum, and possibly another. You need to look for homonyms, that is, two names for different taxons. If the rules of the 4th edn. of the Code of the I.C.Z.N., Art. 23, can be implemented, you can re-name a species already known. After 177 years of being overlooked by all the greats of the discipline, I discovered such an instance of homonymy. Yet modesty prevailing, among other reasons, I have chosen not to even be an author of the nomen novum, let alone seeing anything named for me. I would hope that anything named for an actual person would be done knowing that said person (Hugh Hefner?) has made a contribution to natural history. Harrison Ford has an ant named for him; he is a conservationist. I don’t see that license permitted for Colbert, but I am not familiar with him enough to know.
#2 | Written by Mathew about 3 years ago.

The instance of Sylvivagus palustris hefneri lead me to find the original description (James Lazell, J. Mammalology, 1984). The Playboy Corporation was a generous contributor to a conservation organization associated with protetcting the habitat and wildlife of the Florida Keys (where hefneri is found), among other things. This clearly shows where the author was coming from in naming a rabbit for Hugh Hefner.
#3 | Written by -- about 3 years ago.

There is also the name Pelecanoides urinatrix elizabethae. It was published in 1954 in the Bulletin of the British Ornithologists’ Club for a type of diving petrel (about the time its presumed namesake ascended the throne). I have not seen the original description to be sure, but this name no longer represents a distinct population anyhow and it is considered “rejected” in scientific nomenclatural terms.

Syzdekistan

A Desperate Plea, Please Name Something After Me

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