There is also the aspect that scientific names change in reponse to new science.? Somebody will propose a new name but acceptance may not be immediate or universal.? And, even after the changes have been accepted, workers in the field (I am thinking of folks who study whiptail / racerunner lizards) may still call them by the old generic name even while using the new name in formal publication.

Hal Michael
Olympia WA
360-459-4005 (H)
ucd880 at comcast.net

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dennis Paulson " < dennispaulson at comcast.net>
To: "TWEETERS tweeters" <tweeters at u. washington . edu >
Sent: Monday, March 21, 2011 8:41:27 AM
Subject: [Tweeters] Re: Common vs. scientific name

Hi, Barry.


Thanks for writing. Indeed that's the case, and you could find innumerable examples. All of us have been frustrated by this, no one more than a beginner in the field just trying to learn what to call something. I have the same problem when I encounter a group I know very little about so can't make any judgment myself about what name seems to be the correct one.


Nevertheless, and notwithstanding what Michael Hobbs wrote about the impermanence of names and classification, scientific names are the language of the world. In America, one of our common dragonflies is the Four-spotted Skimmer. In England, it's a Four-spotted Chaser. In Germany, it's a Vierfleck . It's different again in France, Sweden, Czech Republic, Rumania , Russia, China, Korea, Japan, and of course every other country with a different language. In all of them it is Libellula quadrimaculata , and none of us could communicate about it if it weren't for that consistency. It's easy to find a similar example with birds.


Common names could almost be called linguistic whims of particular countries or even regions of countries. But scientific names have rules. Papilio turnus was once considered the name of the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, but it was discovered that an earlier name, Papilio glaucus , existed for it, so that had to be the name that was used. That has been stable for quite a long time. I know turnus was considered a subspecies of glaucus when I was first learning about butterflies, but I don't know if it's still considered valid.


Lepidopterists are notorious for fiddling with the taxonomy of butterflies, even long before genetic data were available, and I think Papilio has been split and resplit from the time when just about all swallowtails were thought to be in that genus. Splitting out Pterourus for the tiger swallowtails was probably not justified (IMHO), yet it was done. So now we have Pterourus glaucus as another possible name. It starts getting stickier then, as some butterfly people will use Papilio , others Pterourus , depending on what camp they're in. Lepidopterology seems always to have camps!


I wouldn't be entirely surprised if more bird scientific names than common names have changed in North America since I began to learn about birds 50 years ago. It would be interesting to do a comparison! The scientific names would all have changed because of rules of zoological nomenclature and/or taxonomic changes, but it would be interesting to know why the many changes in common names. Simple answer is that the AOU Checklist Committee decided to change them, but I don't think there are any hard and fast rules. We went from Black Oystercatcher to American Black Oystercatcher and back, not for any taxonomic reason. We went from Black-headed Gull to Common Black-headed Gull and back, not for any taxonomic reason. We went from Green Heron to Green-backed Heron to Green Heron, and that of course was for good taxonomic reasons. Same for Blue Grouse to Sooty and Dusky, etc.


Frank GIll and Minturn Wright published a list of birds of the world, with recommended common names that I thought were pretty sensible, but the AOU Checklist Committee hasn't accepted them. On the contrary, an authortitative list of scientific names is supposed to be accepted by everyone in the world. In practice, of course, that's not always the case, as in different groups of North American butterfly people, who may use both different common and different scientific names! Also, there have been two "official" lists of North American herps going for some time, causing a lot of frustration, but I think one of them has finally won the day.


This stuff has nothing to do with nature, of course, but a lot to do with human behavior. And that makes it just as interesting to me.


Dennis




On Mar 19, 2011, at 6:27 PM, Barry Ulman wrote:






Dennis,




I'm not so sure about "scientific names" being constant either. Take these butterflies, for example:


Anosia plexippus or Danaus ? plexippus = Monarch


Papilio asterias ?or ? Papilio polyxenes = ?Eastern Black Swallowtail


Papilio turnus or Papilio glaucus or Pterourus glaucus = ?Tiger Swallowtail


Papilio rutulus or Pterourus rutulus = ?Western Tiger Swallowtail


Either the genus names or the species names, and sometimes both names, have changed over the years. But the common names of all those butterflies have remained constant.


Barry Ulman
Bellingham , WA.









I'm all for official common names. We generated them for dragonflies, and I think one of the consequences was that the interest in that group took a tremendous uptick. But thank goodness we have scientific names, which are constant for anyone in the world no matter their native language.



Dennis

-----
Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
dennispaulson at comcast.net

_______________________________________________
Tweeters mailing list
Tweeters at u. washington . edu
http ://mailman1.u. washington . edu /mailman/ listinfo /tweeters