BUZZWORDS
Not Your Father’s Patronym
MAY BERENBAUM
I
know that money isn’t supposed to buy
happiness, but I have my
doubts about the proverb, at least in the context of
entomology. I’m pretty happy
right now, and money is responsible. I suppose I should be
embarrassed or even ashamed
but, frankly, I’m too happy to
be. Ever since I first learned
about scientific patronyms, I’ve harbored
a secret desire to inspire one. Patronyms,
of course, are scientific names that honor a
particular individual (although, technically,
I suppose, patronyms honor male people,
whereas matronyms honor female people).
It’s a longstanding practice, dating back at
least to Linnaeus, who created them with
abandon in the process of coming up with
binomial names for all living organisms
known at the time. There are many reasons
systematists today, though, are less than
thrilled with patronyms. Dimock (1984)
decried the proliferation of patronyms in
butterfly nomenclature:
There are authors who have given
identical patronyms to collections
of different new species. Others have
indiscriminately assigned patronyms to honor every relative, colleague, acquaintance, and friend-ofa-friend, and when it appears they
have exhausted their lists of personal names, they start over again by
assigning the same patronyms to new
taxa. These practices show a total
lack of imagination and absence of
taxonomic creativity with no regard
to the butterflies burdened with their
68
“That taxonomist can give me any
name he wants—but if he thinks I’m
going to answer to it, he’s delusional…”
names or other lepidopterists who
must use the names.
And Ghazilou et al. (2012) bemoaned
the contamination of the Latin nomenclatural language base with extraneous
and intrusive letters that creep in from
modern languages.
Notwithstanding the objections, the practice continues, but it has continued without
any involvement on my part. What drew me
to patronyms in the first place is their permanence—inspiring a patronym is a way to
achieve a form of scientific immortality. I’ve
written papers that nobody cites anymore
(I’m looking at you, Wraight et al. 1999,
which until just now has had more authors
than citations), but a scientific name should
last at least as long as any shred of the current scientific enterprise remains viable.
Generally, people are honored by entomological patronyms for making some
significant contribution to the science,
and it’s altogether unsurprising that the
entomologists most frequently honored by
patronyms are taxonomists, the ones who
discover and describe new species. But
even within taxonomy, patronym frequency
varies. As Dimock (1984) lamented, those
naming neotropical butterflies seem overly partial to patronyms. As well, among
people who describe insect vectors, the
patronym is a fixture. Robert Traub, the
“greatest authority on fleas and flea-borne
diseases who ever lived,” inspired 41 patronyms (Robbins and Durden 2007) and
Harry Hoogstraal, described as “the greatest
authority on ticks and tickborne diseases
who ever lived” (Keirans 1986), might hold
the record with at least 76 patronyms, a
list encompassing not only ticks but also
crane flies, sand flies, bat flies (nycteribiids
and streblids), mosquitoes, tabanids, biting
midges, scarab beetles, carabid beetles, cerambycid beetles, sucking lice, chewing lice,
fleas, water striders, leafhoppers, naucorids,
earwigs, stoneflies, proturans, millipedes,
daddylonglegs, mites, spiders, at least one
snake, several rodents, nematodes and protozoa (Carpenter and Robbins 2010).
So, clearly, I’m in the wrong end of
the profession if I’m trolling for patronyms—I’m not a systematist, and I don’t
work on neotropical Lepidoptera or arthropod disease vectors. My closest brush to
date even with the possibility of a patronym was in 1979, when I collected a species of weevil in the genus Apion that was
apparently undescribed. As I wrote many
years ago (Berenbaum 2000), “I still live in
American Entomologist • Summer 2014
fear that when it is described for posterity by a systematist in a refereed scientific publication it will be named after me.
The last thing I need is for a beetle whose
distinguishing feature is a proboscis fully
half the length of its body to be known as
‘Berenbaum’s weevil.’” It remains, by the
way, undescribed.
Recently, however, I had another chance
for patronymic posterity. In March 2014, I
saw a news article called “Vengeful Taxonomy: Your Chance to Name a New Species of Cockroach” at the Entomological
Society of America Web site Entomology
Today (http://tinyurl.com/mt959vp). The
article was written by Dominic Evangelista, an entrepreneurial graduate student at
Rutgers. A biodiversity inventory in Guyana turned up a hitherto undescribed
species of cockroach (Evangelista et al.
2014), and he had hit upon the idea of
offering naming rights to whoever made
the largest contribution to his project on
the crowd-funding site Experiment.com
in support of his field work. As he wrote:
We recently discovered a new species
of cockroach in the genus Xestoblatta. It’s dirty, it’s ugly, it’s smelly, and
it needs a name. As part of our campaign to fund a project about how
tropical landscapes drive evolution,
we are offering the opportunity for
anyone with enough cash to name
this new species. Why would you want
to name a down-and-dirty insect like
that? Because it’s the most low-down
and dirty of them all!
Well, for me, this was a no-brainer. I
didn’t find its behavior, including an overwhelming attraction to beer and a mating
ritual that involves males extruding uric
acid through dorsal segments as a nuptial
gift for the female, at all low-down and
dirty; in fact, I found it all rather endearing.
What I found most impressive about this
unnamed species of Xestoblatta, however,
was the fact that, as Dominic recounted,
“out of more than 700 cockroach individuals that we collected, this new species
accounted for 25% of them. It was actually
the most abundant species we had in our
2014 study.” I thought that fact alone was
a marvelous demonstration of how much
biodiversity, particularly of the insect kind,
remains to be described—so this cockroach embodied many of the conservation
messages that I’ve been promoting over
the course of my career as an entomologist. As for naming rights, they’d go to
American Entomologist • Volume 60, Number 2
“the most generous (highest) donation to
the project” provided that the project was
“fully funded (at least $4,000) before the
end date of April 13, 2014.” That seemed a
very good deal for scientific immortality.
So, on March 24, I fired off an e-mail
to Dominic:
Hi—I’m the head of the Department
of Entomology at the University
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
and one of my longtime and still
unfulfilled professional ambitions
has been to be the inspiration
for an insect’s scientific name.
I’ve actually personally stumbled
across a few new species—years ago,
I collected an undescribed species of Apion weevil, which, due to
the death of the coleopterist who
was working on the genus, remains
undescribed, and more recently I
have coauthored several papers
with a former student/now postdoc, Terry Harrison, in which new
species of moths were described—
but, as you well know, it’s against
the nomenclatural code to name a
species after yourself (that’s
one rule that doesn’t appear in
your “click here for a detailed
account” link). I also can’t bring
myself to ask anyone if he or she
is patronym-friendly (I know many
systematists aren’t)...
This may sound pathetic, and
I don’t know if it’s consistent
with the rules of your campaign,
but I’d be happy to donate a check
for $5,000 if you can name your
new uric-acid-secreting cockroach after me. For whatever it’s
worth, I’ve actually published
on creative reuse of uric acid by
insects: as we described in Timmermann and Berenbaum (1999),
black swallowtail caterpillars
(Papilio polyxenes) sequester uric
acid to create their “bird-dropping” white spot (which means they
not only look like a bird dropping,
they probably taste like one, too,
although I can’t attest to that
personally).
And, happily, Dominic sent back a
charming reply:
Hello Dr. Berenbaum,
I would be honored to name the
species after such a famous and
well respected entomologist. I am
now filled with regret and shame
for even suggesting that a cockroach be named for unscrupulous
reasons! This is of course not my
personal opinion but just something that I thought people would
catch on to. As of right now, what
you have to do to win the contest
is donate $3520 to the crowd-funding project (http://tinyurl.com/
klpjzf6) and you automatically win. You can donate less and I
suspect you would still win the
prize but as of right now $3520
is a guarantee. When you win you
can tell me the precise lettering
you want (e.g. X. mayberenbaum, X.
berenbaum, etc) or you can leave
that to us. I am very excited and
extremely grateful for this opportunity. I can easily say yours’
is the best email I have ever
received. Thank you so much!
Long story short, I went to the fundraising Web site and made the contribution
to cover the entire remaining cost of the
project (thereby buying happiness for not
one but two entomologists). We had a
few more exchanges, mostly about Latin
grammar, and I was delighted to discover that the feminine ending in Latin for
a patronym (or in this case a matronym)
is “ae,” so, were the species to be named
“Xestoblatta berenbaumae,” that name
would be a tribute to the most frequent
misspelling of my first name (which many
people persist in spelling as “Mae,” despite
being told that it’s “May, like the month”).
Dominic’s manuscript has been submitted
to ZooKeys and I’m probably more nervous about its fate than he is, knowing that
all that stands between me and scientific
immortality is a reviewer in a bad mood.
So, I admit it—I have personally reinforced some of the reservations taxonomists have about selling scientific names
(e.g., http://iczn.org/nontaxonomy/
term/434). That said, I think I got a real
bargain. Naming rights for vertebrates have
recently fetched astronomical prices. The
name of a newly discovered monkey species in Bolivia, for example, was auctioned
off for $650,000 in 2005 to the highest bidder, Internet casino GoldenPalace.com (so
the monkey’s scientific name is Callicebus
aureipalatii and it goes by the common
name GoldenPalace.com Monkey) (Chang
69
2008). While I did pay more than basketball
player Luc Longley did to name a “crested
and colourful” deep-sea shrimp Lebbeus
clarehanna in honor of his daughter in an
eBay auction (Grant 2009; Madrigal, 2009;
McCallum and Poore, 2010), X. berenbaumae was a bargain compared to the rights
to name the butterfly Opsiphanes blythekitzmillerae (Austin et al., 2007), which were
auctioned on eBay in 2007 for a winning
bid of over $40,000 (Chang 2008).
I should feel terrible about this whole
thing—but it’s hard to, knowing that the
money (in all of these cases) goes toward
biodiversity and conservation and to the
desperately underfunded enterprise of
alpha taxonomy. Carbayo and Marques
(2011), in fact, estimate the average cost
of describing just one new insect species
in Brazil at $39,000 (and “the total cost to
describe unknown animal diversity would
be US$263 billion”), so I’m glad for the
opportunity to help fund the effort even
if it’s just a drop in the (beer bait) bucket.
I’m hoping history will look kindly upon
the etymology of Xestoblatta berenbaumae
and not judge me too harshly. In fact, I
can’t help wondering whether posterity a
century hence will understand the etymology of the slew of celebrity patronyms that
have proliferated of late (including, among
arthropods, Agaporomorphus colberti, Agra
katewinsletae, Orectochilus orbisonorum,
Pheidole harrisonfordi, Scaptia beyonceae,
and Pachygnatha zappa, among others).
The long life of patronyms is what ultimately vitiates vengeful taxonomy in the
first place. Although the name persists, the
link can fade over time. Such was the fate
of several patronyms created by Linnaeus
himself. In trying to document various and
sundry anecdotal accounts of vengeful
taxonomy, it took me some time to track
down the name Linnaeus bestowed upon
“a stinking weed” after a rival (e.g., http://
tinyurl.com/obsh8vb). I finally found both
the name of the malodorous weed and the
story behind the name:
Linnaeus and Siegesbeck appeared to
be friends at an early period. But there
seems to have been some irritation
under the surface. In Hortus Cliffortianus, printed during the summer of
1737, Linnaeus had named a little stinking weed Siegesbeckia! Linnaeus had
probably been warned about Siegesbeck’s attack [i.e., criticism] and in this
way he wanted to castigate him. One
of Linnaeus’s ideas in Critica Botanica
70
(1737, pp. 78-81) is that there should
be a link between the flower and the
botanist whom it was named after. For
example, Magnolia, Linnaeus says,
has very handsome leaves and flowers, which recall the splendid botanist
Magnol. But Dorstenia has insignificant
flowers, faded and past their prime,
like the works of Dorsten. According
to Linnaeus himself there was such
a ‘charm’ in his associations that they
would never fade from memory!”
(http://tinyurl.com/mozst72)
Given that most people who have occasion to talk about Siegesbeckia today have
almost certainly forgotten the details of
the 18th century dispute, Linnaeus was
perhaps overly optimistic about the durability of the associations that inspired at
least this name and probably many others.
I imagine, for example, that very few entomologists know the snarky story behind
the name of the lygaeid bug Aphanus
rolandri: “Daniel Rolander was a student
of Linnaeus who collected thousands of
specimens in Suriname, but refused to
turn them over to Linnaeus, intending to
publish himself. Linnaeus effectively had
him blacklisted and named this European seed bug after him: ‘aphanus’ is from
the Greek for ignoble or obscure” (http://
tinyurl.com/m6ens32).
Ironically, because the name has survived taxonomic revisions, Linnaeus may
have inadvertently conferred immortality on a scientist he had hoped would be
forgotten. There’s not much of a literature
on A. rolandri other than to note that it’s
native to Europe but now can be found in
North Africa, Iran, and Afghanistan (Borges
et al. 2013), and that it’s polyphagous. In
parts of its range within Europe, it actually overlaps with Linnaea borealis, the
twinflower, a caprifoliaceous plant that’s
among very few species named in honor of
Linnaeus (actually, indirectly by Linnaeus
himself). One can’t help but wonder how
that interaction turns out.
Pollet, A.O. Soares, J.A.P. Marcelino, C.
Rego, and P. Cardoso. 2013. New records
of exotic spiders and insects to the Azores,
and new data on recently introduced species. Arquipelago. Life and Marine Sciences 30: 57-70.
Carbayo, F. and A. Marques. 2011. The costs
of describing the entire animal kingdom.
Trends in Ecology and Evolution 26 (4): 154155. DOI: 10.1016/j.tree.2011.01.004
Carpenter, T.L. and R.G. Robbins. 2010. Patronyms honoring Harry Hoogstraal (19171986). Systematic and Applied Acarology
15: 187-194.
Chang, A. 2008. Want scientific immortality? Name a sea slug. USA Today, Posted
6/30/2008. http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/
tech/science/2008-06-30-4094422303_x.htm
Dimock, T.E. 1984. Patronyms in Rhopaloceran nomenclature. J. Res. Lep. 23: 94-101.
Evangelista, D.A., G. Bourne, and J.L. Ware.
2014. Species richness estimates of Blattodea s.s. (Insecta: Dictyoptera) from northern
Guyana vary depending upon methods of
species delimitation. Systematic Entomology 39: 150-158.
Ghazilou, A., A. Nateghi-Shahrokni, and
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Grant, B. 2009. Shrimpus eBayicus. The Scientist
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articleNo/27811/title/Shrimpus-eBayicus/
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1986). Journal of Medical Entomology 23:
342–343.
McCallum, A.W. and G.C.B. Poore. 2010.
Two crested and colourful new species of
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Australia. Zootaxa 2372: 126-137.
Madrigal, A. 2009. 7-Foot NBA Center Wins
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Wired http://www.wired.com/2009/12/
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and patronyms. J. Vector Ecol. 32: 159-160.
Timmermann, S., and M.R. Berenbaum.
1999. Uric acid in swallowtail caterpillars:
chemical mimicry or antioxidant defense?
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References Cited
Austin, G.T., A.D. Warren, C.M. Penz, J.E.
Llorente-Bousquets, A. Luis-Martinez,
and I. Vargas-Fernandez. 2007. A new species of Opsiphanes Doubleday, [1849] from
western Mexico (Nymphalidae: Morphinae: Brassolini). Bull. Allyn Mus. 150, 1-20.
Berenbaum, M.R. 2000. Buzzwords. Washington (DC): Joseph Henry Press.
Borges, P.A.V., M. Reut, N.B. da Ponte, J.A.
Wuartau, M. Fletcher, A.B. Sousa, M.
May Berenbaum is a professor and head of the
Department of Entomology,
University of Illinois, 320
Morrill Hall, 505 South
Goodwin Avenue, Urbana,
IL 61801. Currently, she is
studying the chemical
aspects of interaction between herbivorous
insects and their hosts.
American Entomologist • Summer 2014