Beetle named after Evangelion

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Beetle named after Evangelion

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Postby gwern » Wed Apr 27, 2016 8:16 pm

Lycocerus evangelium, specifically. Naming announced in "Taxonomic revision of the Lycocerus hanatanii species group (Coleoptera, Cantharidae), with the description of new species from Taiwan" http://web-ejt.nhm.ac.uk/index.php/ejt/ ... ad/292/569 , Hsiao et al 2016

Etymology: The specific epithet is derived from the Latin _evangelium_ (“good news”), referring to fact that its discovery was good news for the team; the specific name is also in memory of the anime _Neon Genesis Evangelion_, which is one of the greatest animes in Japanese history and had a strong impact on Japanese popular culture.


Personally, I think https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9081_Hideakianno is cooler.

http://eva.onegeek.org/pipermail/evange ... 07285.html

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Re: Beetle named after Evangelion

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Postby SEELE-01 » Sat Jun 18, 2016 12:23 pm

So cool!!!
I don't work with taxonomy much, but as a biologist I hope to one day find a new species to name after a few of my favorite things ^_^
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Re: Beetle named after Evangelion

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Postby Bagheera » Sat Jun 18, 2016 1:32 pm

Bah! Thread is useless without pictures! Here:

Image

This is the beetle in question. More info here. Neat Japanese website with more pictures here. Oh, and a twitter link!



But seriously, this is very cool. Thanks for letting us know!
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Re: Beetle named after Evangelion

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Postby Sachi » Sat Jun 18, 2016 8:51 pm

It's Shamshel!
- Sachi

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Re: Beetle named after Evangelion

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Postby YunHSIAO » Sat Feb 18, 2017 2:05 am

Hi guys. I'm the first author of this paper. I'm happy that you could enjoy our study!

If anyone has interests to contact with me, you could talk to me via my twitter.
https://twitter.com/YHsiaoBeetle

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Re: Beetle named after Evangelion

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Postby SoryuUberAlles » Sun Feb 19, 2017 12:46 am

After I heard some species of slime mold beetle were named after Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld, are scientists really allowed to name their discoveries after anything they want?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agathidium
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Re: Beetle named after Evangelion

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Postby SEELE-01 » Mon Feb 20, 2017 7:29 pm

View Original PostSoryuUberAlles wrote:After I heard some species of slime mold beetle were named after Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld, are scientists really allowed to name their discoveries after anything they want?


Biologist here:

In theory yes, the first descriptor(s) of any species has priority over it's naming...
In practice it is another story: there are manuals that dictate the naming of species, and to my knowledge the only rules that limit the names you may use are:

SPOILER: Show
International code of Zoological nomenclature, appendix A:
4. No author should propose a name that, to his or her knowledge or reasonable belief, would be likely to give offence on any grounds.

6. Editors and others responsible for the publication of zoological papers should avoid publishing any material which appears to them to contain a breach of the above principles.

7. The observation of these principles is a matter for the proper feelings and conscience of individual zoologists, and the Commission is not empowered to investigate or rule upon alleged breaches of them.


Therefore, while doing something like "L. evangelium" is possible (naming it based on something you like) it has to be popular enough for it to be plausible. Extra points if there is some (even obscure) relation between the organism and the choosen name, like "Spongiforma squarepantsii", a sea sponge named after Sponge Bob. Something like "chocolate-ice-creamii" will probably not do unless it is something that genuinely looks like chocolate ice cream.
A celebrity, yes, assuming he/she is an actual celebrity, regardless of why he/she is a celebrity. The Bobbit worm for example, was simply was hype at the time. There is a fern genus named Gaga (for Lady Gaga) because the authors liked her and because the DNA bases spelled GAGA, so, double points.

When it comes to people there are some aspects to consider: in the good ol' days of exploration (1700-1800), naming conventions were a bit more lax, so species described then may be named after obscure people that in some cases, only the researcher knew and that were not affiliated in any way to science. On the other hand, Linnaeus himself named one stink bug after one of his critics. Those examples in particular are frowned down (and forbidden) nowadays.

An extreme example would be discovering a blue flower with white spots: you may want to go for "Lewinskii", althougth you would find it pretty hard to pull off (co-authors, revisors, editors) and even then, would be very distasteful...

Generally, when you choose a person, authors tend to go for famous researchers in their respective fields, so popular scientists are likely to have a genus/species named after them after they die (or if you are really good and famous and respected, while you live!)

Scientist are also more or less divided regarding using names like "Gaga" and "S. squarepantsii", some say it trivializes science and makes it some kind of a joke, some say that it gets people's attention and curiosity towards it -something scientist struggle to do-.
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