having winged fingers, of course.
The life sciences were originally taught entirely in Latin, but
classics, the study of Latin and Greek, is now primarily a scholarly
profession and no longer feared by successive generations of schoolchildren.
Anyone studying wildlife will know the scientific name of at least
some species of plant or animal; almost all hail from Latin, Greek
or latinised Greek roots, and, despite their apparent unpronounceability,
are not designed deliberately to confuse, instead, they are (most
often) actually perfectly logical and contain a wealth of information.
For those who wrestled with Plato, and lost, or tackled alternative
subjects, the following account explains the ‘hidden’ meaning
and origin of a plethora (glut or excess; from the Greek ‘pletho’
– be full) of otherwise bewildering and tongue-twisting scientific
names owned by the fauna of Arabia.
Taxonomists formerly placed animals and plants into class, order,
family and genus on the basis of physical similarity, for example,
eels, worms and snakes were once ‘lumped’ together, although they
are clearly, taxonomically, unrelated. The furtherance of floral
and faunal studies eventually resulted in a revision of the classifactory
system of earlier empiricists. Morphological similarities were
still used to place new finds but a familial i.e what we now know
to be genetic, linkage was the common thread – for example, swans,
geese and ducks are all in the family Anatidae, which is then
divided into some 50 genera and further sub-divided into 180 recognisably
separate species or taxa. This system continues today although
genetic (DNA) studies are throwing up some unexpected if incontrovertible
relationships requiring ongoing revision of the established taxonomic
order.
Swede Carl von Linnaeus devised the binomial system of nomenclature
when classifying plants and animals in the mid 18th century and
it is that used to the present day. Common or English (vernacular)
names are often confusing and hence an international standard
is much the best way of avoiding confusion, therefore we have
scientific names. Species, as we all know, are theoretically only
able to breed with other members of the same species, but in practise
inter-specific matings within a genus can be/are frequent (showing
recent evolutionary divergence and taxonomic closeness). Species
may be broken up into subspecies or races, which are differing
forms geographically, ecologically or physiologically isolated
from each other, although this general rule is not black and white.
Subspecificity is shown by use of a trinomial, the third name
being the subspecific form, for example Motacilla flava thunbergi
or Felis sylvestris gordoni. Some species are monotypic meaning
there is no racial differentiation and hence possess only a binomial,
others are polytypic. The nominate form, the form first described
to science, has the specific name repeated, as with Motacilla
flava flava for example.
Understanding the meaning of scientific names may help your identification
skills, allowing you to get close to a final determination before
resorting to the use of less than inspiring, but often invaluable,
non-pictorial keys. One word of warning, however, is that the
common (vernacular) or English name often bears no relation to
a translation of the scientific name, even if they possess one,
which many don’t. The generic name may be a mere cypher with no
meaning whatever (sometimes being just anagramatic) or its meaning
may remain obscure), whereas the specific and subspecific names
generally refer to appearance, structure, behaviour or perhaps
their original finder. Only vertebrate names are deciphered in
this pictorial account (for no special reason); plant names are
the subject of a separate account.