A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.
Rules
This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.
I have no idea on why they decided to call the common European frog Rana temporaria, but "temporary frog" sounds really funny. "Eh this species name is just temporary, I swear".
I'm also kind of surprised I couldn't find a single species called merdicula (little shit). Seems like the sort of humour some would have.
Pretty sure that temporaria is related in this case to temporal, not temporary. It'd be like frog of the times or frog of the right season or something like that.
I could be wrong though.
As for little shits I would try something with copro- in it. That's the greek word for shit. Like coprophage is a shiteater or Copromorphidae are a family of moths that have shit like camouflage.
Temporal: that would explain it. But it still sounds funny.
Copromorphidae: I stand corrected. Shit-shaped moths!
I also found a frog called Allobates niputidea. That's from Spanish though, not Latin. (ni puta idea = no fucking idea.)
Looking for the backstory of the frog name, here's another gem from here.
Now, the caterpillar remains alive for a while as the baby wasps eat it from the inside, bending and squirming as it becomes desiccated and dies. These wiggly movements made the scientists think of Shakira, and thus the species Aleiodes shakirae immortalized the Colombian singer in the annals of zoology.
Zoologists are fun.
I’m still a huge fan of fruit flies. Drosophila melanogaster= yellow bellied garbage lover
Black bellied, but yeah!
A bunch of species of tarantula in the Thrixopelma genus recently got moved to their own genus Ewok. This genus includes the newly discovered Ewok aycarumba.
They did it for the Luzulz
Gorilla gorilla gorilla
I prefer Boops boops. Pronounced Boh-ops.
I like Upupa epops
Also "sub-", at least in mycological names.
The other day, I read that there's a mushroom called "Agaricus subsubensis" and I felt like I was being trolled.
Mamalian nomenclature:
Lynx McLynxface
Fox McFoxface
Aside from Amorphophallus holding a big wang in your face there will always be Rollulus rouloul for the lulz.
While we're at it, let's make an honorable mention of the naughtiest of all Amorphophallus species, A. fornicatus.