Standardized Butterfly Names/So.Cal BF

[Tish Silberbauer & Dave Britton]

On Sun, 22 Mar 1998 08:07:35 -0800, Wanda Dameron <be496 at lafn.org>
wrote:

>	For those not aware of the tremendous service, a group of
>lepidopterists, in conjunction with NABA, settled on a standardized list
>of common names.  NABA published "The NABA Checklist & English Names of
>North American Butterflies."   While there have been other lists in the
>past, none have really taken hold as evidenced by the inconsistency  of
>names in the various older books.  Newer books, for the most part, are
>following this nomenclature.  The widely expanding annual Butterfly
>Counts have also started using this nomenclature, and will undoubtedly
>provide even more public acceptance.
>
Wanda,

re:  standardization of names.  A similar effort was made recently by
a group of australian lepidopterists, in that they published a list of
new common names for consideration, along with old common names where
these were appropriate.  I was amazed how passionately some folks
cling to certain common names, no matter how inappropriate they might
be.  The idea of standardization here was to make butterflies more
accessible to the general public.  There were too many "common"  names
for skippers (for example) which were based on the specific epithet
which have little or no descriptive meanings (eg. Trapezites phigalia
was the Phigalia skipper).  There were also a few common names which
were unacceptable because they now have offensive meanings (eg. Nigger
and Purple Brown-Eye).  There were also a few changes to reflect
discrete taxonomic groups (genera, sub-genera) in the common names.
However, when it comes to change, however, there is this old guard of
lepidopterists who are not so keen on having any changes.

My questions are:

How do you get change to come about if the main people who should
institute that change are not cooperative?

Is this NABA list generally recognized by the US butterflying
community?

cheers,

DaveB.
--
Dave & Tish
IRC: Mutah. Remove the offensive skin condition to email