Social Butterfly + another angle on Common names

[Stelenes at aol.com]

>>But who is this Linne?  Is he some sort of entomologist?  What's the
>>"senior name"?  This is stuff is confusing to me;  I'm quite uninitiated.

>>-- Louis

Linné is the common name for Carolus Linnaeus who was also known as Karl 
Linné.  He's the Swedish guy who started the scientific naming system using 
Latin words in the 1735.  In 1761 he was knighted by the Swedish Royal family 
and made his name change official to Carl von Linné.  However, Linnaeus is 
the senior scientific name!

His system is called a binomial naming because Linneaus proposed a complete 
name has a 'genus' and a 'species'.  He also proposed higher orders of 
organization like Lepidoptera (Order), Insecta (Class), Kingdom (Animalia).  
Or for example, also: Kingdom - Animal; Class - Vertebrates; Order - 
Primates: (Genus species): Homo sapiens for ourselves, commonly known as: 
Man, Mankind, Humankind, Smart Homonid, People, etc. (Perhaps someone will 
decide we should have a Standardized Common Name. - the word standardized is 
key here since all common names are valid, but that is another thread in the 
group, in case this happens, I propose: Common Homo, after mulling over 
Birding and NABA logic).

Linneaus was a taxonomist.  He is often considered the father of taxonomy.  
Though Aristotle has a claim to that title, too.  I am not sure if Linneaus 
considered himself specifically an entomologist, he loved botany and became a 
physician because he didn't want to disappoint his Mom and Dad (A priest and 
gardener, who was sad his son didn't take the high road).  We should consider 
him a Lepidopterist too, since he gave all kinds of organisms names including 
lots of beautiful butterflies from the Old World and the New, in his 10th 
edition of the book, Systema Naturæ.  His work was in Latin since it was the 
prevailing scientific language at the time. 

'Senior' and 'Junior' in this case are science talk for Latin names made up 
by the first person to describe the butterfly or its genus.  The way a 
scientist 'invents' a scientific name is by publishing it in a scientific 
magazine.  Once upon a time before the age of communication, internet and 
photography and during longer publication cycles, different scientists could 
have been in a situation where they published their names for the same 
organism or genus.  So whoever published first gets credit for the name and 
that name beats out any subsequent or 'junior' names published later.  

Now in the age of internet it is questionable whether Leps-L is sufficiently 
scientific to 'publish' a name of a new species here.  Also, as the consensus 
of butterfly scientists learns more, one butterfly can be lumped as the same 
species as another (then the name becomes subject to the senior name), in 
which case the newer name gets tossed.  Or a butterfly can be split and a new 
scientific name given to the new species which previously was thought to be 
just a form or "subspecies" of the other.  Also, the scientist who describes 
it first forever gets associated with it.  To Illustrate this we are Homo 
sapiens (Linneaus, 1758), if Linneaus first described us to taxonomy in 1758. 
 But generally, you don't see the (Linneaus), (L), or (Linne) following our 
species (assuming Linneaus was the one), as is the custom for many scientists 
for other species.  Perhaps because we subconsciously consider ourselves 
above Leps and other organisms to reference a discoverer or namer of our 
species.  Or a more homocentric view: We are well known so no reference is 
needed.  Maybe - unless we are lumped with some apes.  Finally, if no one 
thought to give Common Homo a standardized name before, the same rules 
applied to senior/junior to standardized common names as do to scientific 
names, and Leps-L were sufficiently scientific, then folks would be stuck 
with Common Homo as a name.  (If the Amymone or Di-morphic Bark Wing could 
speak.) 

About your first question, one real social butterfly a tad closer to home is 
the Lyside (Kricogonia lyside [Godart,1819: Colias lyside.  In 1863 Reakirt 
'split' the genus and named it Kricogonia which Mark Walker knows how to 
pronounce]).  If you ever sat in the Texas desert watching them you would see 
them rapidly forming lines of ten or more butterflies, darting, curving about 
in follow the leader style among the yucca.  The Eucheira socialis certainly 
has social caterpillars, so it might be more descriptively named the Social 
Caterpillar.  While it is the same organism in different parts of the life 
cycle, butterfly in common usage refers only to the adult winged form of the 
bug.  I doubt the Eucheira socialis butterfly is social in that sense, but 
someone more familiar with the species' behavior might comment.

Another candidate, and in my opinion the most social butterfly is the eternal 
favorite, Monarch Butterfly [Danaus plexxipus, (Linnaeus, 1758: Papilio 
plexxipus.;  In 1844, Kluk created Danaus by splitting it from Papilio)].  It 
is hard to argue that traveling thousands of miles to form clumps of millions 
of butterflies for months is not the clear winner for social tendencies!

Hope the babbling is entertaining.  Best wishes and happy butterflying.  Doug 
Dawn.
Woodland, CA
Monterrey, Mexico
http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/4048/index.html



Thanks, Chris, and everyone else who responded!  This is exactly what I
was looking for!

But who is this Linne?  Is he some sort of entomologist?  What's the
"senior name"?  This is stuff is confusing to me;  I'm quite uninitiated.

-- Louis

Subj:    Re: Scientific name for social butterfly
Date:   1/13/00 10:36:29 PM Pacific Standard Time
From:   ld001h at mail.rochester.edu (Louis Deaett)
Sender: owner-leps-l at lists.yale.edu
Reply-to:   <A HREF="mailto:ld001h at mail.rochester.edu">ld001h at mail.rochester.e
du</A>
To: leps-l at lists.yale.edu

In article <3.0.5.32.20000113014215.00833d60 at mail.utexas.edu>,
drdn at mail.utexas.edu wrote:

> >P.S. There aren't _really_ any social butterflies, are there?
> >
> >
> Oh, yes there are - try *Eucheira socialis* - THE MADRONE BUTTERFLY that
> lives with its young in tents.
> 
> For a conversational term *Papilio socialis* would be appropriate should we
> choose to sink genera and follow Linne with all the butterflies in one
> genus under the senior name.
> .......Chris Durden