Taylor Swift named a centipede in her honor. How does the centipede feel about this? Jeff Kravitz/Getty Images; Dr. Derek Hennen
- Researchers have been known to name species after celebrities.
- Honoring a celebrity in this way can show their fan base or draw attention to the animal itself.
- But it’s very difficult to change the scientific name of a species, and that can lead to regret.
Taylor Swift has one. Leonardo DiCaprio has a handful. David Attenborough? Too many to count.
The list of species named after celebrities is long and includes everything from flies (Beyoncé) to lichens (Oprah Winfrey) to lizards (Lionel Messi).
An eponym is a scientific species name based on a real or fictional person.
When scientists name a species after a famous person, it can often make headlines and draw attention to less charismatic animals or plants, like Jimmy Buffet’s snail or Lady Gaga’s ferns.
Some researchers say it’s a way to draw attention to spiders and other animals that would otherwise be ignored. Others are simply fans or want to recognize the environmental activism of celebrities, such as Sericomyrmex radioheadi, an ant named after the carbon-conscious band Radiohead.
Certain species have physical or behavioral characteristics that fit a famous person or an acting role. Tarantobelus jeffdanielsi is a roundworm that kills tarantulas and was named in honor of Jeff Daniels’ character in the film Arachnophobia.
Still, some experts see naming a species after a famous person as a recipe for “nomenclatory regret.” When a celebrity falls from their pedestal, what does it mean for the spiders or slugs left behind after their scandal?
The case for Taylor Swift’s centipede
A Virginia Tech researcher made headlines when he named a centipede after Taylor Swift. It seemed like a smart move because common arthropods rarely make history and this type of advertising can help raise awareness, a recent article says.
University of Oxford biologist Katie Blake and her co-authors found that species with prominent names had nearly three times as many page views on Wikipedia as control species with lesser-known nicknames.
However, whether these views actually lead to better conservation efforts requires further study.
Tiger sharks (Galeocerdo cuvier) were named after one of the founders of comparative anatomy, Georges Cuvier. Andre Seale/VW PICS/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
And it’s not clear that the attention is always positive, especially when the prominent figure is infamous rather than famous.
“We need more work to better understand how species are affected when they are named after someone who is quite controversial,” Blake said. “Not just in terms of attitudes towards these species, but also in terms of conservation measures where necessary.”
While Blake believes prominent names can draw attention to amphibians and invertebrates, “which are not exactly the public’s most popular taxa, naming them after someone who is disliked can have consequences, can worsen the conservation status of these species.”
That’s one reason some scientists want to rename a blind cave beetle.
Trying to save a beetle named after Hitler
Part of the appeal of a scientific name is that it is unchanging and the same in every language. But recently researchers have begun proposing changes to “scientific names that commemorate historical figures who committed egregious crimes against humanity.”
Christopher Bae, a professor of anthropology at the University of Hawaii at Mano, and his colleagues were more specific, saying names associated with “tyrants, dictators, colonizers and slave traders” should be changed.
Some examples include Adolf Hitler, Cecil Rhodes and George Hibbert, after whom all species are named.
Hitler actually named two insects after him. One of them, Rochlingia hitleri, has been extinct for millions of years. The other is a rare cave beetle, Anophthalmus hitleri.
The blind cave beetle only occurs in a few caves in Slovenia. Sergio Pitamitz/VWPics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Scientists have warned that the cave beetle is under threat from poachers. “These collectors go out and collect them and then sell them to neo-Nazis on the Internet because they are now memorabilia,” Bae said.
Another example is the many species named after the imperialist Cecil John Rhodes, who drove British expansion into southern Africa and supported racial segregation.
Its name is common throughout the biological world, including many plant names originating from the region of Rhodesia, now known as Zimbabwe and Zambia.
Currently, the debate over whether to use a name derived from Rhodes is particularly relevant to paleoanthropologists studying early human ancestors. According to Bae, there is one name, Homo heidelbergensis, that represents such a mix of species that it is no longer a useful name. Instead, researchers want to introduce a new name for an ancestor of modern humans.
The skull of an adult Homo heidelbergensis was found in Spain in 1992. Paleoanthropologists are discussing how to change the species’ name. CESAR MANSO/AFP via Getty Images
If they were to follow traditional naming practice, the rules of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature state that a species’ first name takes precedence over the scientific name, so the species would be called Homo rhodesiensis. A human skull found in Zambia was given this name in 1921.
However, Bae and many of his colleagues are not interested in using the name Homo rhodesiensis, especially because of the importance of the species. “This guy had really serious problems,” Bae said of Rhodes.
Earlier this year, Bae and over a dozen other paleoanthropologists met to discuss the topic, and it was almost unanimous. Almost no one was in favor of using the name derived from Rhodes.
Instead, another name was suggested, Homo bodoensis, named after Bodo D’ar in Ethiopia, where the skull was found.
What would it take to change a species?‘ Surname?
In honor of Jimmy Buffett’s “Margaritaville,” scientists named this yellow snail Cayo Margarita. Hal Horowitz/WireImage/Getty Images; R. Bieler
According to ICZN estimates, there are hundreds of thousands of species with eponymous names. But Bae believes that only a fraction of them reach the level of Hitler, Hibbert and Rhodes. To guard against frivolous changes, Bae and his co-authors called for the creation of an ethics committee to review the proposals.
“No one is really going to want to pursue every single name out there,” he said. “It will really be the egregious ones that need to be looked at more closely.”
The Brontosaurus is just one animal whose scientific name was changed (and then back again). George Rinhart/Corbis via Getty Images
But names can be changed. Consider Brontosaurus, a dinosaur genus that was lumped in with Apatosaurus in 2015 and then separated again. The changes are often made for scientific reasons, but not always.
The American Ornithological Society is in the process of changing the common English names of bird species named after people. The organization Bird Names for Birds is pushing for the change because many of the animals are named after people who enslaved others or dug Native American graves.
However, the birds’ scientific names remain because they are much harder to change, NPR reported.
Down with all namesakes?
“We already have thousands of species named after people who are now unknown,” wrote Stephen B. Heard in his book “Charles Darwin’s Barnacle and David Bowie’s Spider: How Scientific Names Celebrate Adventurers, Heroes, and Even a Few Scoundrels.” “.
However, the fact that a celebrity could disappear from the public consciousness is not the worst thing that can happen. Case in point: Hitler’s Beetle.
Chances are, most celebrities with a species of the same name don’t leave behind as tainted a legacy as some powerful men of the past. Still, social norms are changing, and it’s easy to see how, for example, the reputation of some famous people has changed after the #MeToo movement.
And some researchers would prefer to correct the imbalance of species named primarily after 19th- and 20th-century European men and instead name more species after women and local scientists. Or perhaps change existing eponyms to make them more inclusive.
Some researchers noted, “Their names will not disappear from history: they will simply fade into synonymy.” That is, there may one day be a footnote indicating that the species was formerly known as the Hitler beetle.
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