What's in a name?

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examples of two part scientific names... these are four of the eight species of Istigobius in Australia Istigobius perspicillatus Istigobius spence Istigobius nigroocellatus Istigobius hoesei

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scientific names are made up by people from all walks of life     Aulotrachichthys pulsator golden roughy The golden roughy, Aulotrachichthys pulsator, which occurs in southern Australia, was described by Martin Gomon (Curator of Fishes, Museum Victoria) and Rudie Kuiter (a Melbourne underwater photographer and author) in the Memoirs of the Museum of Victoria. To recognise the author or authors of a species, their surname/s and the year in which the description was published are placed after the name when presented formally: Aulotrachichthys pulsator Gomon & Kuiter, 1987. The specimen on which the name is based (holotype) is kept in the collection of Museum Victoria.

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scientific names are formed in many ways     Hippocampus breviceps shorthead seahorse   Pseudanthias bimaculatus twospot basslet   Hippocampus comes from the Greek words hippos and kampos which mean 'horse' and 'sea animal' respectively, as these fish do look like little horses   Pseudanthias is from the Greek pseudes and anthias which translates as 'false anthias', anthias being a Greek sea-fish of the closely related genus Anthias.           Forcipiger longirostris longnose butterflyfish Allenichthys glauertii glauerts anglerfish longirostris is from the Latin longus and rostrum, meaning 'long' and 'snout', and refers to the unusually long snout in this species   Allenichthys, meaning 'Allen fish', honours Jerry Allen, a well known fish taxonomist working in Australia.     Amniataba percoides barred grunter Eeyorius hutchinsi finetooth beardie Amniataba is a combination of the Latin 'amnis' meaning stream, and 'ataba', a Queensland aboriginal name for another fish of the same family.   Eeyorius refers to 'Eeyore' in the children’s book Winnie the Pooh, as both live in damp dark places.       Vincentia novaehollandiae southern cardinalfish Sio nordenskjoldii crusthead The name novaehollandiae is Latin for 'New Holland', an early name for Australia.   Sio is an acronym for Scripps Institute of Oceanography, collector of many new deepsea fishes

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how about these scientific names....     Abudefduf vaigensis sergeant major Eeyorius hutchinsi finetooth beardie Farlapiscus breviceps shorthead seahorse Gunterichthys longipenis gold brotula     Trypauchen vagina   Farlapiscus has since been replaced by the older name Hippocampus       Batman insignitus Rosenblattia robustus Batman has since been replaced by the older name Cryptocentrus       Spottobrotula amaculata immaculate ling Tripodichthys blochii slender triplespine

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scientific names change for many reasons... the dolphin fish Coryphaena hippurus has had at least 17 separate names proposed for it, but retains the original name given it by Linnaeus in 1758           Coryphaena hippurus dolphinfish               and... by placing the three species Chaetodon aruanus, Pomacentrus marginatus and Heliastes reticulatus in the genus Dascyllus, they become Dascyllus aruanus, Dascyllus marginatus and Dascyllus reticulatus         Dascyllus aruanus humbug Dascyllus melanurus blacktail humbug     Dascyllus reticulatus headband humbug       and... by placing the neuter species Acanthidium quadrispinosum into the feminine genus Deania, the species name becomes Deania quadrispinosa         Deania quadrispinosa longsnout dogfish

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