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What’s in an animal’s name?

Humans have named animal's for thousands of years. I can imagine cavemen creating names to establish which creature they wanted to hunt. Perhaps they also had a wolf cub as a pet and that too was given a name to identify it from the humans in the group. However the custom started, naming animals seems to be very important to us and now takes a multitude of forms for a multitude of reasons.

In the 18th century Carl Linnaeus designed a system of classification which classified all living organisms into groups depending on their structure and characteristics. The system, comprising seven major levels of classification, allowed the subdivision of living organisms into smaller and more defined groups until eventually you ended up with a species. The system relies on using Latin which was a universal language for academics in Europe in the 18th century. The importance of using one language, albeit a dead one, was that it avoided any confusion over what species was being discussed. Linnaeus continued to refine parts of his classification so that, finally, he settled on one Latin name to indicate the genus (a group of structurally similar organisms) and one as a shorthand for the species. This dual word system is still used today to individually name all living species.

Being human, we are inclined to change our minds about subjects depending upon new scientific discoveries or other factors such as distribution. Consequently, some animals seem to have their names regularly changed. As the scientists improve their use of dna, teeth structures etc so the taxonomy (the science and process of naming living organisms) is regularly revised. Thus the Bobcat, originally known as Felis rufus, has now changed to Lynx rufus as it has been discovered that anatomically it is closely related to lynx. Similarly, distribution can effect the naming in English of species and we find that the Siberian tiger, overnight, became the Amur tiger as it was thought a more accurate description of where the tiger is now located, ie the Amur basin of East Asia rather than the whole of Siberia.

I always find it interesting when looking at the Latin names of species to see some surnames regularly cropping up. This is because having your name linked to a species is thought to be a way of honouring explorers, scientists etc who have discovered a new species or have benefited our natural world. In Victorian times, when there was a craze for exploring the natural world, explorers seem to have been amongst the first to see and name many living organisms, ranging from mammals to plants. Joseph Thompson, an explorer, discovered and had a gazelle named after him, whilst the banker and zoologist Lionel Rothschild first described a species of giraffe which was named after him. The famous Charles Darwin has over 250 species ranging from a rove beetle (Darwinilus) to an extinct primate (Darwinius) bearing his name. In more modern times, even our beloved David Attenborough has over 20 species named after him including a flesh belly frog from Peru and a long beaked echidna from New Guinea.

As well as their Linnaeus Latin name, many organisms have their own name provided by the people who live in proximity to it. Often, these names are in, or can be translated to, English. Consequently, the same organism can be called different names by people inhabiting different parts of its range. A good example of this is the puma which ranges from Argentina in South America to Canada in North America. The puma has the record of having over eighty different names ranging from puma in the south to cougar or mountain lion in the north.

In captivity, animals are often given names which are used to recognize individuals. Some, such as chimps, dolphin and sea lion appear to recognize their names as applying to them as an individual. Other species respond to having their name called but this could be classical conditioning. I find it fascinating that in zoos, mammal keepers are most likely to name their charges with bird keepers second and reptile keepers third. Species which are kept in large numbers, or are not considered of great importance may be given a number or have no name at all. Zoos sometimes run competitions to select a new zoo baby’s name. This doesn’t always work well. An Amur leopard cub I regularly photographed at Marwell was called Kanika which apparently meant “Golden” in Sanskrit. This seemed appropriate as she is a rare species. When she grew up she was exported to Santa Barbara zoo in the States to help improve their Amur leopard blood lines. Unfortunately, they ran a competition to rename her and she became Ajax, a cleaning product name in Britain. Needless to say the Kanika fans in England were not impressed. Other zoos use the same first letter in a name as that of the mother to denote lineage, whilst others pick names inspired by the language or culture of a species home region. In conclusion, humans spend a lot of time anguishing over what to call animals. Whether any animal species are similarly distressed that they have a name which identifies them from all other living things is however a debatable point.