Charles Darwin's barnacle and David Bowie's spider : how scientific names celebrate adventurers, heroes, and even a few scoundrels / Stephen B. Heard ; with illustrations by Emily S. Damstra.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Heard, Stephen B., Author.

Contributor:

Damstra, Emily S.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Natural history--Classification.

Natural history.

Genre:

Popular works.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

New Haven, CT : Yale University Press, [2020]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

An engaging history of the surprising, poignant, and occasionally scandalous stories behind scientific names and their cultural significance Ever since Carl Linnaeus’s binomial system of scientific names was adopted in the eighteenth century, scientists have been eponymously naming organisms in ways that both honor and vilify their namesakes. This charming, informative, and accessible history examines the fascinating stories behind taxonomic nomenclature, from Linnaeus himself naming a small and unpleasant weed after a rival botanist to the recent influx of scientific names based on pop-culture icons—including David Bowie’s spider, Frank Zappa’s jellyfish, and Beyoncé’s fly. Exploring the naming process as an opportunity for scientists to express themselves in creative ways, Stephen B. Heard’s fresh approach shows how scientific names function as a window into both the passions and foibles of the scientific community and as a more general indicator of the ways in which humans relate to, and impose order on, the natural world.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Preface

Introduction: A lemur and its name

1. The need for names

2. How scientific naming works

3. Forsythia, magnolia, and names within names

4. Gary Larson’s louse

5. Maria Sibylla Merian and the metamorphosis of natural history

6. David Bowie’s spider, Beyoncé’s fly, and Frank Zappa’s jellyfish

7. Spurlingia: a snail for the otherwise forgotten

8. The name of evil

9. Richard Spruce and the love of liverworts

10. Names from the ego

11. Eponymy gone wrong? Robert von Beringe’s gorilla and Dian Fossey’s tarsier

12. Less than a tribute: the temptation of insult naming

13. Charles Darwin’s tangled bank

14. Love in a Latin name

15. The indigenous blind spot

16. Harry Potter and the name of the species

17. Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer and the fish from the depths of time

18. Names for sale

19. A fly for Mabel Alexander

Epilogue

Notes

Sources and further reading

Acknowledgments

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 207-225) and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 26. Mai 2020)

ISBN:

0-300-25269-2

OCLC:

1143645266