A question about species authors

[Ken Kinman]

Dear All,
      I would personally consider it a greater honor to have a species named after me, than to be included as an honorary author.  After all, authors of names are not always given when referring to a species.

      As for inappropiateness, I have seen vertebrate fossils being given specific names based on such things as the name or a local beer, or a rock star whose music was being played when the fossil was found.  In my opinion that is a whole lot more inappropriate than making a financial contributor a coauthor of a paper.  Seems to me that it is more appropriate for the author of paper to encourage financial contributions to serious scientific research (whether it be naming the person coauthor or naming the species after them), than it would be to name a species after a beer or a rock star who the author happened to like.

     And there are all those "joke" names out there, and in some ways that seems less appropriate than encouraging private financial support of scientific research.  I really could care less if an another author gets tacked on to a paper if it somehow encourages more such financial support for scientific research.
             ------ My two cents,
                             Ken Kinman