As surprising as it may seem, those who discover new species vg pg mix have a lot of freedom for th

I would never have written this post without the help of a hermit ... the old hermit of 100 million years. Has just been published the description of a small crustacean fossil found in Spain June 25, 2009. Until then, nothing much folichon. But June 25, 2009, it was the day of the death of Michael Jackson. On hearing the news that night via the television in the restaurant where they dined, the discoverers of the beast decided to pay tribute to the "King of Pop" by giving his name to the hermit crab, named Mesoparapylocheles michaeljacksoni. If ever the author of Bad and Thriller falls into oblivion musicological, a small animal (too dark) maintain his memory for eternity vg pg mix ...
This story reminded me of the incredible fate of another small animal, insect shown on the above illustration in strange company. This beetle is a few millimeters long, living in Slovenia in damp caves where it feeds on the larvae of other insects. He is blind and, frankly, not very interesting. Yet the market for insects, it has reached very high prices. The reason? His name. The collector who described it in 1937 was a German, Oscar Scheibel and as "inventor" of the case, he chose to give him the name of Adolf Hitler: The beetle is called so Anophthalmus hitleri and Surname caused him a lot of trouble. The insect is in fact a victim assiduous hunting to feed the collections vg pg mix of nostalgic Führer.
In an article published in 2002, the British journalist Rose George quoted Drovenik Bozo, Director of Entomology of the Academy of Sciences Slovenian department: "A well kept hitleri can go up to 1200 pounds if I do not know. hitleri became "trendy", I just know that its price has doubled in three years and I have to deal with more and more buyers who are interested in this insect in markets such as Frankfurt and Paris. They are not all Nazi sympathizers, but they want to make profits by selling to collectors of Nazi memorabilia. " He can only hope that the species will not be endangered because of its cumbersome surname ...
As surprising as it may seem, those who discover new species vg pg mix have a lot of freedom for the name. Although vg pg mix the taxonomy is a well codified art, the binomial vg pg mix system leaves the field to the inventiveness of researchers, provided they comply with the rules of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature. The genus name is more or less imposed (eg Panthera for the big cats to humans or Homo that existed in history). vg pg mix However, the epithet (which defines the name of the species within the genus) is much freer. This can be a qualifier - as sapiens for the modern man who is not always true to its name - a common vg pg mix name - as for leo the lion (Panthera leo) or for tigris tiger (Panthera tigris) - a name place - as neanderthalensis for Neanderthal (without "h" ...), the name of the German valley where the first bones of this species have been found - or a person's name. For example, the scientific name of the emperor penguin Aptenodytes forsteri is given by the British zoologist George Gray in honor of the German vg pg mix naturalist Johann Forster, who identified several other species of penguins on a journey with James Cook.
The International Code of Zoological Nomenclature vg pg mix beautiful have more than one hundred pages, there is no rule of propriety, not politically correct to the choice of epithet when referring to a person (real or fictitious ). In his article, George Rose quotes a researcher saying that only references vg pg mix to religion are prohibited (no corny Jesus or Muhammad) but it must be an unwritten rule and unwritten. It is not uncommon to see a few jokes in publications describing new species. In addition to Michael Jackson, the music stars are frequently in the spotlight, whether Frank Zappa with jellyfish Phialella zappai Mick Jagger with fossil gastropod Anomphalus jaggerius Beatles or the nematode worm Greeffiella beatlei. While some saw a certain irony to see a blind insect bear the name of Hitler, they may also rejoice to learn that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld have all given their name to powerful men of other insects ridiculous size. Allusions to fictional characters are also common, as evidenced by three species of spiders, Tetragnatha Quasimodo, Hortipes terminator and Walckenaeria Pinocchio. A number of references are fun, as this species of pterosaur, Coloborhynchus spielbergi, named in tribute to the director ... Jurassic Park. To find other nuggets