61–70 of 101 posts
> the new species has now been given its official name, 'troglomyces twitteri' Academia always seems so mature and serious from outside, nice to know there can be some lighthearted humor there too :) As an aside, do you guys know any other Latin animal names that may have an 'untraditional' origin?
Pardon me for nitpicking but how fungus on fish is bizzare?
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Not Latinified, but a key protein in brain and spinal cord development is called sonic hedgehog. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_hedgehog The oddest thing was sitting through neuro lectures when this was introduced as if it was the most normal name in the world. We were looking at each other like "are we hearing this right?"
>It has been noted that mention of a mutation in a sonic hedgehog gene might not be well received in a discussion of a serious disorder with a patient or their family. Imaging being told by a doctor that you have sonic the hedgehog disorder.
> the new species has now been given its official name, 'troglomyces twitteri' Academia always seems so mature and serious from outside, nice to know there can be some lighthearted humor there too :) As an aside, do you guys know any other Latin animal names that may have an 'untraditional' origin?
Not Latinified, but a key protein in brain and spinal cord development is called sonic hedgehog. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_hedgehog The oddest thing was sitting through neuro lectures when this was introduced as if it was the most normal name in the world. We were looking at each other like "are we hearing this right?"
That’s a xenomorph
> the new species has now been given its official name, 'troglomyces twitteri' Academia always seems so mature and serious from outside, nice to know there can be some lighthearted humor there too :) As an aside, do you guys know any other Latin animal names that may have an 'untraditional' origin?
The Puerto Rican tody - a small, colorful bird - has the scientific name of todus mexicanus, even though it's endemic to Puerto Rico (where it's known simply as San Pedrito). Meanwhile, the todus portoricensis is actually a Cuban bird.
René Lesson, a French ornithologist, described the birds in 1838, based on information he received from his brother, who had collected some of the species and erroneously noted their provenance. AFAIK, there have been attempts to correct these entrenched errors, but there has been no success in doing so. To further confuse things, there are Puerto Ricans who will refer to the island bird as the todus portoricensis - perhaps as a way of correcting for the error, or just due to the confusion surrounding it.
> the new species has now been given its official name, 'troglomyces twitteri' Academia always seems so mature and serious from outside, nice to know there can be some lighthearted humor there too :) As an aside, do you guys know any other Latin animal names that may have an 'untraditional' origin?
It’s fairly normal for names of things few people are interested in such as insects and fungi. https://www.gadgette.com/2016/02/29/these-are-the-silliest-s... mentions, for example, Pieza pi and Spongiforma squarepantsii . Google easily gives you more examples, for example https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-worlds-str... , which explains the rules are not very strict: “The name must not be offensive, m…
> the new species has now been given its official name, 'troglomyces twitteri' Academia always seems so mature and serious from outside, nice to know there can be some lighthearted humor there too :) As an aside, do you guys know any other Latin animal names that may have an 'untraditional' origin?
"It was the unique dense golden hairs on the fly's abdomen that led me to name this fly in honour of the performer Beyonce as well as giving me the chance to demonstrate the fun side of taxonomy - the naming of species," Mr Lessard said.
> the new species has now been given its official name, 'troglomyces twitteri' Academia always seems so mature and serious from outside, nice to know there can be some lighthearted humor there too :) As an aside, do you guys know any other Latin animal names that may have an 'untraditional' origin?
Neobuthus Factorio: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neobuthus_factorio Named after the game Factorio, as the species was discovered by the father of the lead dev.
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There are two red circles, but there is nothing identifiable to the untrained eye contained within them.
Right. Can someone explain? One of the circles has a white dot in the middle that looks like it could be just dust. The other a faint dark dot in the middle again that looks like maybe just dust or dirt. Nothing really in them that doesn’t just look exactly like what’s around them.