3 ms·

That's why the scientific Latin names were created. The robin in North America (Turdus migratorius) was named after a similar looking one that settlers were fam

That's why the scientific Latin names were created. The robin in North America (Turdus migratorius) was named after a similar looking one that settlers were familiar with in Europe (Erithacus rubecula) and there are many cases where similar namespace collisions for animals and plants occur in daily language.

adrian_b 3y ago
Unfortunately also many of the scientific Latin names have been given rather carelessly. Linnaeus is one of the worst offenders. He has taken most of his names from classic Latin and Greek authors, like Pliny the Elder and Aristotle, but especially for the Greek names it appears that he has not actually read the original ancient books, or at least he has read them very superficially. The result is that a very large number of names of animals and plants given by Linnaeus have been applied to very different species than those for which they had been used traditionally. The genus of harvestmen Phalangium, which is the subject of this research is one of the animals misnamed by Linnaeus. Aristotle has used 2 words for naming spiders, one for the spiders that make webs ("arachnee") and the other was "phalangion". The description of the latter corresponds to a wolf spider (which is now named "Lycosa", scientifically). Instead of using "Phalangium" for wolf spiders, Linnaeus has wrongly applied it to harvestmen. There are no closer similarities between spiders and harvestmen than between spiders and any other arachnids, except that both spiders and harvestmen have relatively long legs for their bodies. When looking at harvestmen it is very easy to see that they are not spiders, because their abdomen is not separated from the thorax and they do not have the poisonous "fangs" characteristic for spiders. The ancestors of spiders and harvestmen were already separated during Silurian, at a time when the ancestors of humans and fish were not yet separated.

adrian_b 3y ago

Unfortunately also many of the scientific Latin names have been given rather carelessly. Linnaeus is one of the worst offenders. He has taken most of his names from classic Latin and Greek authors, like Pliny the Elder and Aristotle, but especially for the Greek names it appears that he has not actually read the original ancient books, or at least he has read them very superficially. The result is that a very large number of names of animals and plants given by Linnaeus have been applied to very different species than those for which they had been used traditionally. The genus of harvestmen Phalangium, which is the subject of this research is one of the animals misnamed by Linnaeus. Aristotle has used 2 words for naming spiders, one for the spiders that make webs ("arachnee") and the other was "phalangion". The description of the latter corresponds to a wolf spider (which is now named "Lycosa", scientifically). Instead of using "Phalangium" for wolf spiders, Linnaeus has wrongly applied it to harvestmen. There are no closer similarities between spiders and harvestmen than between spiders and any other arachnids, except that both spiders and harvestmen have relatively long legs for their bodies. When looking at harvestmen it is very easy to see that they are not spiders, because their abdomen is not separated from the thorax and they do not have the poisonous "fangs" characteristic for spiders. The ancestors of spiders and harvestmen were already separated during Silurian, at a time when the ancestors of humans and fish were not yet separated.