Drunkard and irritant: German scientists demanded to rename dinosaurs because of offensive and stupid names (4 photos)

It turns out that even paleontologists have a sense of humor.





Scientists from the University of Friedrich-Alexander, Germany, drew attention to the names of some dinosaurs and already extinct animals and insects.

It turns out that biologists and paleontologists name new species based on their own imagination and common sense. Sometimes the name distinguishes the characteristics of the animal, and sometimes it is simply the name of the person or group who discovered it. There are very funny names.

Senecio squalidus (dirty old man)



For example, there is the spring cross Senecio squalidus - which means “dirty old man”, the common tern Eristalis gatesi - “brainless fool”, and one of the butterflies of the moth family in Spanish sounds like La Cerveza, which means “beer”.

Does it taste like beer?





Researchers at the Friedrich-Alexander University drew attention to the name of dinosaurs, which also shine with diversity. For example, there is anatotitan, whose name can be translated as “giant duck,” and drinker (drunkard). One paleontologist named the dinosaur iritator, which means "irritant." The thing is that the scientist was tired of gluing a dinosaur skull and was very angry.



Paleobiologist Emma Dunn and her colleagues said that the naming of animals must be approached very responsibly. Those who have offensive names should be renamed, and those that will be found later should be named by size, weight, habitat, etc. The article appeared in the journal Nature. Scientists studied about 1,500 species and declared 89 potentially offensive. True, no official changes are planned, said the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature.