"New Species Owe Names to Highest Bidder"
Every naming act can be commodified! From the WaPo:
... Ever since Swedish scientist Carl Linnaeus published "Species Plantarum" in 1753 and the 10th edition of "Systema Naturae" five years later, certain rules have governed how plants and animals get their official names. They are always in Latin and consist of two parts: The first specifies the genus; the second, the name of the particular species.
Traditionally, the person who first describes a newfound plant or animal in the academic literature got to name it. There are plenty of other rules in the hundreds of pages of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, but those are the most important.
The rules say nothing about selling naming rights. So after Mark Erdmann, a senior adviser for Conservation International's Indonesia marine program, and consultant Gerald Allen discovered two new species of sharks last year, Erdmann thought, why not auction off the right to name the creatures they had found? ...
I critiqued naming practices in this article and I cringe at the prospect of newly discovered species being named after corporations, though I admit smirking a little when I read about the fact that "in 2005, entomologists Quentin Wheeler and Kelly B. Miller named three slime-mold beetles Agathidium bushi, Agathidium cheneyi and Agathidium rumsfeldi, after President Bush, Vice President Cheney and then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld," although this was spun as an honor.
(NB: Thanks to Frank Pasquale!)
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