Naming a newly discovered species of any animal is a prestigious privilege, and you will think of the best suitable name for that creature. It doesn’t mean that scientists don’t occasionally have very little fun with naming a newly discovered animal.
To name the newly discovered animal, you need to follow the 18th century’s framework of binomial nomenclature.
In addition to this, there is a rule that when naming a newly discovered species of any creature, you should not name it after yourself.
A person wishing to name a newly discovered creature can pretty much give it a name one likes. Many have targeted celebrities as it is not only a great way to get publicity, but it is also to honor a famous personality they admire the most. For example, Ferdinando Boero, jellyfish experts, got enrolled for a prestigious fellowship to study jellyfish in Northern California.
A story of Boero and Zappa
Boero found a new species, and he wrote to Zappa, a famous singer, asking if he would like the honor of being immortalized forever as the official name of a cool jellyfish, which he had discovered. Zappa’s wife told him that there is nothing she would like better than having this cool jellyfish named after her.
There are many similar examples that we could not cover in this article. Going back to the original post, there is an exception! It turns out that there is a case that belongs to none other than Carl Linnaeus himself. He named a “small useless European weed” Siegesbeckia, after a botanist Johann Siegesbeck with whom he got sick. We know it is hillarious and unbelievable, but it is true.
There could be more such examples, but none that got the attention of people as much as this one. Some of the scientists and researchers in history are known to do such things that they are remembered for.
