Fifteen years ago, biologist and Cohen brothers fan Ingi Agnarsson christened two newly-discovered spiders Anelosimus dude and Anelosimus thebiglebowski (includes a spider photo). Why? Most spiders will be aggressive toward their own, but for these two dudes, “aggression, towards kin, will not stand.” Naming new scientific discoveries is fun. Until it isn’t.
From the transcript of It’ll Never Fly: When Gene Names Are TOO Fun:
“ELAH FEDER: In the late ’70s, a pair of scientists were looking at mutations that affected development. So fruit-fly larvae have bristles on them, and they found this one mutation that caused the bristles to be all bunched together. And they thought, what does this bristly little creature look like? Let’s call it Hedgehog.
“THOM KAUFMAN: Perfectly descriptive of the mutant phenotype. Everything is fine. OK. But then they found that there were mutants in mites, and mice have four copies of this gene. And the mouse people got cute, so they started naming these extra copies and said, oh, there’s one that’s Hedgehog, then there’s one we’ll call Sonic Hedgehog after the cartoon character…Well, then it was discovered that this gene caused a human disease that is a very bad thing for a child to inherit from its parents, holoprosencephaly. And when a child has this, and a doctor comes and says, oh, your child is mutant for the Sonic Hedgehog gene, well, it’s not a joke to have a child with holoprosencephaly.”
Smokey, selecting new scientific names isn’t arbitrary. This is nomenclature. There are rules.
How do I name a species after someone?
…Adjectives based on the endings –anus/ -ana/ -anum or –ianus/ -iana/ -ianum are not recommended because they can sound rude, for example using the surname Bush could result in bushianus. Do not use a name which may cause offence (Appendix A); it is advisable to check with the person after whom the new species is being named that they are happy for their name to be used.
Can I name a species after myself?
There is no rule against this, but it may be a sign of vanity!