Once a fossil is found, and its locality information recorded, the next step is determining what it was. We assign scientific names to fossils just like we do for living animals and plants. Scientific names may seem a bit long and hard to pronounce, but they are essential to scientific communication. The popular or common name of many living animals and plants differs from culture to culture and language to language. For example, a peccary to English speakers is a javelina in Latin America, and a lion to us is simba to Swahili speakers. Even within the same language, the common name may not be consistent. If you say “gopher” in some parts of the United States, it means a small burrowing rodent, but in other parts it means a gopher tortoise.
For this reason, every organism (plant, animal, fungus, and even bacteria) has its own scientific name (fig. 10.1). Scientific names are universal around the world, no matter what language the scientist speaks. You may not be able to read much of a scientific paper written in Mandarin Chinese, but the scientific names are always printed out in Roman script, so anyone can read them and at least guess what animal is the subject of the research. The scientific name for the burrowing rodent some people call a “gopher” is Thomomys, but the gopher tortoise is Gopherus, so there is no confusion.
Figure 10.1 ▲
Fossil of an early dog from the Big Badlands of South Dakota showing the catalog number and the scientific name Archaeocyon in italics, and a translation of what its name means. (Photograph by the author)
It is essential to know the scientific name for fossils because most fossils don’t even have a common name. You may know the saber-toothed cat by its English name, but it’s different in other languages—and to all scientists it is Smilodon. Mammoths are familiar to us by that name, but in other languages they could be mamut (Spanish) or mammouth (French), but they are all Mammuthus to a scientist. Most fossil animals and plants have no common name whatsoever, so there is no choice but to use their scientific names. You actually know quite a few scientific names of prehistoric and living creatures. For example, everyone knows Tyrannosaurus rex; that is its proper scientific name, and no other popular name exists. Nearly all of the other dinosaur names you probably know—from Brontosaurus to Velociraptor to Stegosaurus to Triceratops—are scientific names as well.
All organisms on Earth have a two-part (binomial) scientific name. The first part is the genus name (the plural is “genera” not “genuses”). It is always capitalized and either italicized (in print) or underlined (when handwritten). The names Tyrannosaurus, Brontosaurus, Velociraptor, Stegosaurus, and Triceratops are all genus-level names or “generic names.” But a genus typically includes a number of species. The species name (or “trivial name”) is never capitalized (even if it came from a proper noun), but it is always underlined or italicized. Thus Tyrannosaurus rex is a genus and species name; so is Velociraptor mongoliensis. Your scientific binomen is Homo sapiens, but there are other species of Homo, such as Homo neanderthalis, Homo erectus, and Homo habilis.
Generic names are never used more than once in the animal kingdom. There are a few cases of the same genus being used for both plants and animals, but there is no likelihood of confusion between a plant and an animal. Species names, however, are used over and over again, so they cannot stand alone in a scientific paper. Thus you can say Tyrannosaurus rex or Homo sapiens, but not “rex” or “sapiens.” You can abbreviate the genus name, so T. rex or H. sapiens is proper.
Scientific names were originally based on Latin or Greek words because all scholars read and wrote in Latin or Greek as an international form of communication in the early days of natural history. Thus most scientific names can be broken down to their original meaning. Tyrannosaurus rex means “kind of the tyrant lizards” and Homo sapiens means “thinking human.”
The criterion of Greek or Latin roots and latinization of names has become more relaxed as fewer and fewer scientists learn the classical languages (the standard languages for all scholars less than a century ago), and much work is now being done in China, Japan, Russia, India, Latin America, and other non-European scientific communities. Scientists have gotten more and more creative with naming, often to the point of silliness or to selecting names that are difficult for others to use. For example, in 1963 mammalian paleontologist J. Reid Macdonald gave names based on the Lakota language to a number of specimens recovered from the Lakota Sioux reservation land near the old site of the Wounded Knee Massacre in South Dakota. Most non-Lakotans find them difficult to pronounce or spell. Try wrapping your tongue around Ekgmowechashala (iggi-moo-we-CHA-she-la), which means “little cat man” in Lakota. It is a very important specimen of one of the last fossil primates in North America, so it has gotten a lot of attention, and many people have struggled to pronounce its name. In the same paper, Macdonald also named Kukusepasatanka, a hippo-like anthracothere; Sunkahetanka, a primitive dog; and Ekgmoiteptecela, a saber-toothed carnivore. Then there is the transitional fossil between seals and their ancestors known as Puijila, which comes from the Inuktitut language of Greenland; you need to go to the website (http://nature.ca/puijila/fb_an_e.cfm) to hear the correct pronunciation. In Australia, many fossils have odd-sounding names with Aboriginal roots, such as Djalgaringa, Yingabalanaridae, Pilkipildridae, Yalkparidontidaem, Djarthia, Ekaltadeta, Yurlunggur, Namilamadeta, Ngapakaldia, and Djaludjiangi yadjana. Some others include Culmacanthus (“culma” is Aboriginal for “spiny fish”), Barameda (Aboriginal for “fish trap”), and Onychodus jandamarrai after the Jandamarra Aboriginal freedom fighters. Barwickia downunda is named after Australian paleontologist Dick Barwick. Wakiewakie is an Australian fossil marsupial, supposedly named from the Australian way of waking up sleepy field crews in the morning.
About a century ago, an entomologist named Kirkaldy got a bit too creative naming difference genera of “true bugs,” or Hemiptera. He published the names Peggichisme (pronounced “peggy-KISS-me”), Polychisme for a group of stainer bugs, Ochisme and Dolichisme for two bedbugs, Florichisme for a plant hopper bug, and Marichisme, Nanichisme, and Elachisme for seed bugs. For leaf hoppers and assassin bugs, Kirkaldy used male names such as Alchisme, Zanchisme, and Isachisme. In 1912 the Zoological Society of London officially condemned his naming practices, although as long as they were valid taxa, they could not abolish the names.
An entire website devoted to weird names (http://www.curious taxonomy.net/) lists the gamut of odd inspirations, from puns to wordplay to palindromes that read the same way forward and backward. Some of the more clever names include the clams Abra cadabra and Hunkydora; the beetle Agra vation; the snails Ba humbugi and Ittibittium (related to the larger snail Bittium); the flies Meomyia, Aha ha, and Pieza pi; the wasps Heerz tooya and Verae peculya; the trilobite Cindarella; the Devonian fossil Gluteus minimus; the fossil carnivore Daphoenus (pronounced Da-FEE-nus) demilo; the fossil snake Montypythonoides; the Julius Caesar-influenced extinct lorikeet Vini vidivici and the water beetle Ytu brutus; and the Australian dinosaur Ozraptor (known as the “Lizard of Aus”). After a few too many beers, paleontologist Nicholas Longrich named a horned dinosaur Mojoceratops because it had an elaborate heart-shaped frill that might have improved its ability to attract mates. There is a Cretaceous lizard named Cuttysarkus (revealing the namer’s preference for that brand of Scotch whiskey) and a dog-like fossil mammal known as Arfia. The oldest known primate fossil is Purgatorius, not because the namer had some sort of religious point to make about humans but because it was found in Purgatory Hill in the Hell Creek beds of Montana (suitably hellish in the summertime with hot temperatures and dangerous slopes). There are also fossils named after characters in the Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and the Harry Potter series. Despite the musty reputation of taxonomists working away in dark museum basements, they certainly have a sense of humor!
Taxonomic names sometimes attempt to describe the creature or give some idea of its main features. However, if the name becomes inappropriate, it is still valid as long as no other senior synonyms are known. For example, the earliest known fossil whales were originally mistaken for large marine reptiles and named Basilosaurus, or “emperor lizard.” Only later did scientists realize they were whales and mammals, not lizards, but the name is still valid even though it is inappropriate. In the 1920s scientists retrieved material of a bizarre predatory dinosaur from the Cretaceous of Mongolia and named it Oviraptor (“egg thief”) because of its proximity to nests of eggs they thought belonged to the most common dinosaur there, the horned dinosaur Protoceratops. But in the 1980s and 1990s, expeditions returned to Mongolia and found fossil skeletons of Oviraptor mothers brooding those same eggs, and the bones of unborn Oviraptors inside the eggs. The “egg thief” was actually the parent of the eggs, not a thief at all, but this slander to Oviraptor cannot be changed just because it’s now inappropriate.
In addition to names with difficult, odd, or funny pronunciations and meanings are names that honor individuals as well as a tick or a leech or some other parasite that is named after people they wished to dishonor. Even though the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) has a clause stating that “no zoologist should propose a name that, to his knowledge, gives offense on any grounds,” the rule has been violated many times. Linnaeus himself named a noxious weedy aster Sigesbeckia after his rival Johann Sigesbeck, who opposed Linnaeus’s sexual classification of plants. A zoologist named a piranha Rooseveltia natteri because he hated President Theodore Roosevelt. Three different species of slime mold beetles are named after former President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. There is a species of louse named after the famous Far Side cartoonist Gary Larson (Strigiphilus garylarsoni), although this was intended to honor, not dishonor, him (and reportedly Larson loved it). The famous late-nineteenth-century paleontologists Edward Drinker Cope and O. C. Marsh insulted each other with naming wars. Marsh named a marine lizard Mosasaurus copeanus (emphasis on the last four letters), and Cope named a fossil hoofed mammal Anisonchus cophater (emphasis on the last five letters). Cope told his protégé Henry Fairfield Osborn, “Osborn, it’s no use looking up the Greek derivation of cophater, … for I have named it in honor of the number of Cope-haters who surround me.” A century later in 1978, Leigh Van Valen returned the compliment by naming another primitive hoofed mammal after Cope: Oxyacodon marshater. The huge pig-like mammal Dinohyus hollandi was named by paleontologist O. A. Peterson after Carnegie Museum director W. J. Holland, who put his name as first author on almost every paper even if he didn’t do the research or write any of it. The name means “Holland’s terrible pig.” When the specimen was announced in the Pittsburgh newspaper, the front-page headline was “Dinohyus hollandi, The World’s Biggest Hog!”
The species is the fundamental unit in nature because it is species that evolve due to natural selection on populations within the species. The genus is a bit more arbitrary, depending on the scientists’ judgments as to which species cluster together. Genera are clustered into larger groups known as families. For example, our genus Homo belongs to the family Hominidae, along with other genera such as Sahelanthropus, Ardipithecus, Paranthropus, and Australopithecus. The dogs are all members of the family Canidae, the cats are Felidae, and the rhinoceroses are in the Rhinocerotidae. In the animal kingdom, all family names end with the suffix “idae,” which is a quick clue when you encounter an unfamiliar name. (In the plant kingdom, family names end in “aceae,” so Rosaceae is the plant family that includes roses.)
Families are clustered into a larger group called an order. Humans, apes, monkeys, lemurs, and their relatives form the order Primates, and the order Carnivora includes most of the flesh-eating mammals such as cats, dogs, bears, hyenas, weasels, raccoons, seals, and walruses. The rodents are an order (Rodentia), as are the rabbits (Lagomorpha), and most of the larger groups of mammals are orders. Orders are clustered into classes. Within the backboned animals, the families of mammals are clumped into class Mammalia, and the birds (class Aves), the Reptilia, the Amphibia, and so on are classes. Classes are clustered into a larger group called a phylum (plural is “phyla”). Vertebrates (animals with backbones) are members of the phylum Chordata, but there is a phylum Mollusca (molluscs, including clams, snails, squids, and their relatives), the phylum Arthropoda (jointed segmented animals, including insects, spiders, scorpions, crustaceans, millipedes, trilobites, and many others), and so on. The highest rank of all is the kingdom (fig. 10.2). We are members of the kingdom Animalia, but there are also kingdoms for the plants, the fungi, and so on.
Figure 10.2 ▲
The hierarchy of classification showing how each rank or group is nested within a larger one. (Illustration by Mary Persis Williams)
Here is an example of how the hierarchy of groups within groups looks.
| Kingdom |
Animalia |
Animalia (animals) |
| Phylum |
Chordata |
Mollusca |
| Class |
Mammalia |
Gastropoda |
| Order |
Primates |
Neogastropoda |
| Family |
Hominidae |
Turritellidae |
| Genus |
Homo |
Turritella |
| Species |
sapiens |
ocoyana |
Strict rules for how organisms can be named are explained in official rule books, such as the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, which used to be available only in bound printed copies but now can be read online (http://iczn.org/code). There are similar codes for plants, fungi, and bacteria and protists. Most rules are important only to specialists who are about to create a new scientific name, but other rules are commonly encountered by anyone who follows fossils or biology and are worth mentioning. Most important is the rule of priority. The first name given to an organism is the only valid name (unless there are problems), no matter how unfamiliar or inappropriate it is. For example, most paleontologists regard the name “Brontosaurus” as invalid because the same paleontologist, O. C. Marsh, who named that fossil, gave the name Apatosaurus to another specimen of the same animal earlier. Thus Apatosaurus is the proper senior synonym of “Brontosaurus,” and paleontologists have been bound by this rule ever since Elmer Riggs figured it out in 1903. No matter how familiar the public is with the name Brontosaurus, scientists cannot use that name. (Some paleontologists have recently tried to revive the name Brontosaurus, but this is still controversial.)
When paleontologists are working on fossils, they have to keep track of all the names that have been given and figure out which name has priority; the other later names are known as junior synonyms. This is true even if the senior name turns out to be inappropriate. In the earlier part of the book, we saw how an early fossil whale was called Basilosaurus (“emperor lizard” in Greek) even though later work showed it was a whale and a mammal, not a reptile. By the rule of priority, Basilosaurus must stand no matter what it means.
In addition to rules about which name is valid, there are strict rules about creating new names for new species or genera. For the last century, a new scientific name must include a clear diagnosis of how to distinguish it from other similar species, a good description of the specimens, good illustrations, a list of specimens considered to be part of the species, a type specimen that is the conceptual basis for the species, the geographic range and time range of the species, and many other things. All of these must be published in a reputable scientific journal, not on a web page or unpublished dissertation or somewhere else. Otherwise, the new name of a genus or species is not valid, and other scientists will not recognize or use it. A scientist cannot name a genus or species after himself or herself, but the scientist can name it after someone else, and have that person return the favor on a different fossil. For example, my friend and colleague Spencer Lucas named a fossil rhinoceros Zaisanamyndon protheroi after me, and I recently named a fossil peccary Lucashyus in his honor. Some of my colleagues in South America honored me by naming a fossil peccary Protherohyus catadontus, and I’ve written a paper honoring them with a name on my next new species of peccary.
These rules may seem boring and excessively legalistic, but they are essential to maintain order and stability in scientific names. Scientists agreed to these rules over a century ago to prevent pointless arguments about whose name for an organism is right. All other scientists (and especially the scientific journals) follow these rules, and journals will not publish any work that violates them. It’s like knowing the rules of the road before you take your driving test. The Department of Motor Vehicles, and all other drivers, must assume that you know the proper rules for driving because they don’t want to be victims of a deadly accident if you suddenly break the rules. In many cases, amateur fossil collectors have tried to create new names, even to publish them in books and websites, without following the rules properly. The rule book allows professional scientists to quickly determine who is right and who is not, and whose work deserves attention and whose work ought to be ignored.
