MICROCOSMOS.NL - WHY Latin names?

KNOWING CREATURES BY THEIR DOUBLE NAME.
(This article wasn't meant for scientists, but as an explanation why these difficult scientific names are necessary).

REGIONAL NAMES: BEAUTIFUL, BUT ONLY LOCAL.
If you want to want to tell someone about the wonderful song of the blackbird in your garden, almost everybody will know the kind of bird your speaking of. But in Germany you will have to call it an Amsel, in France a merle noir and in Holland a merel. And in some countries one name is not enough, because there can be regional names, some of which may be very poetic.
Regional names for creatures are of course a good thing, because they give people more affinity with the nature surrounding them. But for global science they are impossible to work with. Regional names are given on a random pick of one of the properties of the subject: for example the Lapwing, named after the round, flapping wings, is named after the sound it makes: Kievit ("keeveet") in the Netherlands, Ljip ("ljup") in Friesland (a region in the north of the Netherlands) and Kiebitz ("keebeets") in Germany, What's more, regional names, yes even english names mostly don't give a clue on the place of the creature in taxonomy (e.g. Ruby Tiger, Turnstone, Mallard) An inventory of the animals living in a specific region would be unintelligible, if read by someone from another region.

INTERNATIONAL NAMES FOR A GLOBAL RECOGNITION.
For these reasons people have tried to name each species with a unique specific, Latin name. Why not rather English or French? Well, yeah... Latin was the communicating language for scientists, maybe also for vain reasons like: it did give you an educated appearance and it was not understood by common people. Yet scientific Latin and Greek names are very simple, as you can read on the page on nomenclature. A second important advantage of a Latin, or rather: scientific name: it is also part of the taxonomy, the biological classification. More on this subject on the next page.

A MILESTONE: THE SYSTEMA NATURAE OF LINNAEUS.
Three centuries ago, the Swedish professor Carl Linnaeus laid the foundation of the naming of species with the system we still use today. He gave every plant and, somewhat later every animal that he knew off a double name: the genus name and a second specific name. Before that time, more complicated names were used. Linnaeus didn't invent this nomenclature, be he was the first to use it very strictly for a real system. The publishing date of the 10th edition of his "Systema naturae" is deemed to have been published on the (arbitrary) date of 1 january 1758 by the ICZN (International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature). That date is now considered the oldest valid date for the nomenclature of animals. Systematic names from before that date are no longer valid, so the names may not be older. In order for the system of Linnaeus to work, certain naming rules had to be adapted. There were different rules and Codes over the world. During he first two International Zoological Congresses ( ISZS Paris 1889, Moscow 1892), zoologists spoke of the need to establish international rules to replace these local rules. A completely new version of the rules was published however by the previous mentioned ICZN on there first Code on 9 November 1961. Their latest Code, the fourth edition, is from the year 2000.

Now let's have a look on the most important rules in a (simplified) list:

• Each species is given a unique and double Latin name. The first part, written with an initial capital, is the genus name and the second word, written without capitals, is a specific term for the species itself.
• When an older, valid name is found for a species appears to exist, the present name will lapse and the older name must be used. When two species with a different name appear to be one and the same species, only the oldest name remains. This happened quite often with worldwide spread species.
• If two different species have the same name, one of that species gets another name, for example a name that already existed as a synonym.
• When it proves necessary (by recent research for example) to move a species to another genus, the specific name is kept the same if possible. Example: Dytiscus sulcatus became Acilius sulcatus.

Why can't we give all diving waterbeetles the genus name "Diver", so Dytiscus? Because these many beetles are too different. In older days, when observing beetles was inevitable more superficial (by the lack of good equipment and literature), many were indeed gathered in the Dytiscus genus (Ranthus species for example). So new names had to come up and many a name got the prefix Hydro (water). There's also a bit of "What's in a name?" here. Most important was that the name was unique.

NOT ALWAYS REALLY UNIQUE ?
In recent years many species names were changed, because a need to get things in order was growing more urgent. The world gets smaller (internet, planes) and so there is much more communication between scientists from different parts of the world. With that of course the disadvantage comes that the name of a species may change too often. There were quite a lot complaints...

COMPOSING THE DOUBLE NAME.
How are the names composed? The first part, with an initial capital is always the genus name, sometimes telling something of a characteristic of the group (Dytiscus - "diver"), but very often it is simply a very old Latin or Greek name.

The second part without capitals, the specific name, may be:

• The same as the genus name, e.g. Vanellus vanellus. Sometimes, when the species is the only member of the genus, or sometimes when the species is considered the most characteristic for the genus. A name like that is sometimes called a tautonym.
• An indication of the appearance: size, color, length of legs, dots, e.g. punctatus: dotted, rufifrons: with a red "forehead".
• A description of a relationship or similarity with another animal (or plant) - cimicoides: with the appearance of a bedbug.
• An imitation of the sound, e.g. Crex crex - the Corncrake
• A description of the (feeding) behaviour, e.g. viscivorous: mistletoe berries eating.
• An indication of the habitat, e.g. fluviatilis: in rivers.
• An indication of the land or region e.g. lapponicus: from Lapland.
• The name of a researcher or other person e.g. hermanni: 'the one of Hermann'. Note: this something different than the name of the name giver, which is placed behind the species name !
• Or anything the author would like, provided it is in a sort of 'Latin', e.g. darthvaderius).

NEXT PAGE: the classification of species