On Mar 5, 2006, at 1:57 PM, mike wilson wrote:
David Mann wrote:
On Mar 5, 2006, at 11:58 AM, Bob Shell wrote:
migratory thrush (Turdus migratorius)
That has to be about the funniest Latin name I've ever seen.
- Dave the 10-year-old
You'll probably like this, also, then.
http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/sillymolecules/sillymols.htm
Some of the most difficult creatures to identify with certainty are
the microlepidoptera, very tiny moths. There is one series of genera
with the names Perplexa, Vexata, Exasperata and Damnifica. All were
named by entomologist J.F. Gates Clarke to express his mood at the
time of attempting to classify them.
When I worked at the Smithsonian Institution many years ago we had a
jokester who used to create weird bugs and slip them into the
collection. One notable example of his work was a large beetle
carved from plastic that we found in one of the collection drawers
one day. It's label read Staphylinus styrofoamus.
Bob
