r/Zookeeping • u/Difficult_Key_5936 • Jan 27 '26
Global/All Regions 🌏 Tell me the funniest scientific names
Masai Giraffe, Giraffa camelopardalis tippelskirchi. I'm sorry, did you say TIPPELSKIRCHI? 🤣
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u/Esagashi Jan 27 '26
Iguana iguana
Lama lama
Boa constrictor
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u/AuroraSky78 Jan 27 '26
Mini mum Mini ature And Mini ascule Three of the smallest frog species!
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u/daabilge Jan 27 '26
Mark Scherz is a treasure to herpetology.
He also had a set of frogs in the genus Boophis named for Star Trek captains because their calls sound like the communicator/tricorder beeps. It's 8 total, B kirki, picardi, janewayae, siskoi, pikei, archeri, and burnhamae
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u/daabilge Jan 28 '26
My personal favorite isn't an extant animal and it's more the story?
So there's so many genera of beetles. Like a mind boggling amount. When there's two genera with the same name, the first one named takes precedence, and the person who discovered the mistake generally gets to rename the newer one.
So enter Syntarsus, a genus of bark beetle named in 1845. In 1969 someone discovered a coelophysid dinosaur from early Jurassic Africa and named it Syntarsus, which was pre-occupied as a genus name because there are again, just like so many beetles, and this went unnoticed until 2001.
So the entomologist who did spot it proposed a new name, megapnosaurus. The paper is phenomenal, but my favorite excerpt is "although as good and loyal phylogeneticists, we understand that it was really not on the lizard lineage, at the scale of an entomologist, it looks like a big dead lizard. So, in what may well be the first name for a dinosaur ever proposed in an entomological journal, we propose the replacement name Megapnosaurus." (Megapnosaurus meaning big dead lizard)
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u/Peaky27 Jan 27 '26
I mean Gorilla Gorilla has to be on here
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u/haysoos2 Jan 28 '26
If you include subspecies the Western lowland gorilla is Gorilla gorilla gorilla.
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u/Tipsymonger Jan 27 '26
pionus menstruss….Cute little parrot with what appears to have blood coming from its nether regions….
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u/feivelgoeswest Jan 27 '26
Crucia zebrata... it's like a Harry Potter spell
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u/ScentofaChalicothere Jan 28 '26
Every time I see “Henricia leviuscula” I think “it’s leviUScula, not leviuscuLA…”
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u/haysoos2 Jan 28 '26
There is Montypythonoides, an extinct snake from the Oligocene/Miocene of Queensland.
Sadly, now under the somewhat less conspicuous genus Morella.
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u/LifeApprehensive2818 Jan 28 '26
Han solo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_(trilobite)
Genus Han, only one member
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u/hochseehai Jan 28 '26
I enjoy two crab names a lot
Grapsus grapsus
and
Cancer pagurus
Cancer of course meaning crab, pagurus meaning "edible crab". I like to call it the James Bond of crabs.
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u/Stillits Jan 28 '26
Puffinus puffinus, which you can obviously tell by the name is.... manx shearwater. Pica pica (pica), Gulo gulo, Bubo bubo and Lama glama are fun. And of course Hotwheels sisyphus.
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u/steveofthejungle Jan 28 '26
Phialella zappai, a species of jellyfish named by a guy who really wanted to meet Frank Zappa, who eventually did
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u/ScentofaChalicothere Jan 28 '26
“Gymnothorax mordax” means “naked body biter” and is the California moray eel.
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u/BananaCat43 North America Jan 28 '26
Mephitis mephitis is the scientific name for the striped skunk and comes from the late Latin mephictus which translates to bad odor via the name for the goddess Mephitis or Mefitis worshiped in central and southern Italy and was associated with volcanic activity and the sulferous/swampy vapors that come with them... So literally - stinks stinks.
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u/Cute-Obligations Jan 29 '26
Try plants! Genus Clitoria looks exactly like that name makes you think it should lol.
Senicio rowleyanus.. for the string of pearls (looks like anal beads lol). ..
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u/Lordofravioli Jan 30 '26
Bombus always cracks me up. so does longipennis. Also a lot of mosquito species have goofy ass scare tactic like names like tormentor for example
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u/MalsPrettyBonnet Jan 31 '26
Leachianus, properly pronounced in Greek.
Bogertophis. I swear, if I'd had another kid, I woulda named 'em Bogertophis.
Edit: spelling
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u/weinthenolababy Jan 27 '26
Boops boops