And what is in a name?

[Kenelm Philip]

	Like Ron Gatrelle, I prefer to use scientific names for butterflies,
especially for the arctic species I work with--most of which lack any real
vernacular common names. Instead we have to cope with abortions like 'Four-
dotted Alpine' (for _Erebia youngi_)--which as an attempt at a descriptive
name is perhaps a bit more useful than 'Two-winged Warbler' would be for
a bird.

	However, I lack Ron's certainty about there being one 'correct'
name for a given organism. Taxonomists can disagree (about almost anything,
it would seem). What I call _Erebia youngi_, Scott calls _Erebia dabanen-
sis_. What many people call _Clossiana polaris_, others call _Boloria
polaris_--and North American and Eurasian workers disagree about many names
for holarctic species.

	The new book about the butterflies of British Columbia lumps _Clos-
siana chariclea_ and what, in North America, has been called _Clossiana
titania_ as a single species under the name _chariclea_. In Interior Alaska
these two taxa fly in the same bog habitat in the taiga--but '_titania'
flies every year in late summer, while _chariclea_ flies in odd-numbered
years in mid-summer, and is different in facies from '_titania_'. I cannot
accept these as conspecific, but Shepard fails to find this behavior any
reason for their _not_ being conspecific. So what is the 'correct' name
for these taxa? At this time I would have to say that there is disagreement
among taxonomists, pending further work.

appears to regard the ICZN as an algorithm, which, when
followed, will invariably spit out the 'correct' name. This approach
downplays the human factor, which allows the basic algorithm to produce
a number of different scientific names for the same organism.

	I still prefer the scientific name, despite all that. When working
with holarctic species, one _has_ to use scientific names in order to
communicate with people using different languages within the range of any
single species. But people in different countries may be using different
scientific names as well--the standard European checklists do not always
agree with the standard North American lists.

	Scientific names do have one advantage, however: they can be tracked
through time with the aid of synonomic catalogues. It is possible to
figure out which names used in Holland match which names used today by
going through a few catalogues. This process is much more difficult for
common names, since they often conceal the genus, and are subject to
unregulated arbitrary changes through time.

	I have not added common names to the above--after finding out that
you can use the NABA website to bring up the common names for any scientific
name, I don't see the need for adding those names to a posting concerned
only with arctic species that are unfamiliar to many people by _any_ name.
Anyone I know who works with these species will know them as listed above.

							Ken Philip
fnkwp at uaf.edu

Gatrelle



 
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