And what is in a name?

[John Shuey]

Interestingly,  I wouldn't know what a grey gopher was if one hit me with a
stick - But S. franklinii, commonly known to us (here in Indiana and the Midwest
in general) is Franklin's Ground Squirrel, a state endangered species that we
actually manage for at a couple of sites.   And yes they love to eat duck eggs -
another attribute I admire.

Common names suck-

John
____
John Shuey
Director of Conservation Science
Indiana Office of The Nature Conservancy
1505 N Delaware Street, Suite 200
Indianapolis, IN 46202

phone:  317-951-8818
fax:  317-917-2478
email:  Jshuey at tnc.org


cmbb at sk.sympatico.ca wrote:

> I was given yesterday a report done on nest predators of the ducks of an
> area on the open prairie.  A progress report done by a M.Sc. candidate.
> Used statistics to prove his arguments and named the egg eating mammals in
> Latin.
>
> One of them animals  we call locally The Gopher.  Now there are gophers and
> there are gophers.  According to the soon to be learned gentleman, the
> gopher that was eating the birds' eggs was Spermophilus franklinii - a bushy
> tailed beast with a gray face.  I was astonished that the gopher that I
> loved to hate and saw all the time running around on the open plains never
> looked gray-faced before and never appeared to have a bushy tail.  My
> gopher - the one I love to hate - in smart Latin talk is known as
> Spermophilus richardsonii.  In local argot that other one, Spermophilus
> franklinii, is known as The Grey Gopher.
>
> I like descriptive names like Mourning Dove named because of its plaintive
> cooing. Or Mourning Cloak Butterfly because its folded wing on a twig looks
> like a shroud.  Or rattlesnake.  It concentrates the mind.
>
> And so should it be with butterfly names.  They should describe and
> elucidate as well as be standardized.
>
> Martin Bailey,
>
> cmbb at sk.sympatico.ca
> phone/fax   306 842-8936
>
> 102   1833 Coteau Avenue,
> Weyburn, SK., Canada.
> S4H 2X3
>
>
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