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Nomenclature revisited
- Thread starter Joseph Clemens
- Start date
Of course, the bitter irony is that sometimes the common names are better. I've lost track of the number of times I've been talking to my prof about a particular species of reptile, and we've had to resort to the common name because the scientific name has changed so often.
Seriously, we regularly have conversations like "blah blah blah species A." "Species A? Is that in Family X?" "No, it's in Family Y; it's Common Name." "Oh! That used to be species C." "Really? I learned it as species B, then they changed it to species A; it must've been C before that."
Frankly, I've just stopped trying for some species. I've resorted to just using "sand goanna" for several Australian monitors because nobody can bloody decide who's a sub-species of whom and which are true species and what's the senior synonym. I swear it changes every time an australian herpetologists runs a molecular phylogeny. "Oh, well, this was on snakes, but let's revise the varanids just to screw with people's heads..."
Don't even get me started on molecular phylogenies. Sure, one gene is plenty of basis for re-classifying an entire family. It's not like we get contradictory results every time we do the same phylogeny with a different gene. That's not a tip that something's wrong, no....
Mokele
Seriously, we regularly have conversations like "blah blah blah species A." "Species A? Is that in Family X?" "No, it's in Family Y; it's Common Name." "Oh! That used to be species C." "Really? I learned it as species B, then they changed it to species A; it must've been C before that."
Frankly, I've just stopped trying for some species. I've resorted to just using "sand goanna" for several Australian monitors because nobody can bloody decide who's a sub-species of whom and which are true species and what's the senior synonym. I swear it changes every time an australian herpetologists runs a molecular phylogeny. "Oh, well, this was on snakes, but let's revise the varanids just to screw with people's heads..."
Don't even get me started on molecular phylogenies. Sure, one gene is plenty of basis for re-classifying an entire family. It's not like we get contradictory results every time we do the same phylogeny with a different gene. That's not a tip that something's wrong, no....
Mokele
