[Taxacom] Zzyzx, was: Re: (HERBARIA]...

[Kenneth Kinman]

Dear All,
      Is it me, or shouldn't such silliness (weird combinations of
letters trying to become the last in an alphabetical listing) be
discouraged by intensely negative feedback from colleagues, editors, AND
reviewers (trying to prevent future such absurdities)?  And nothing even
remotely Latin about them.  Makes the debate over how to pronounce
Asterales seem a debate over tiny bits of "minutia" in comparison
(whether the third syllable should be pronounced "AH" or "AY").  

      I can sort of understand the desire to make a genus the first name
in an alphabetical listing (perhaps even "Aaaaa"?), but I cannot fathom
why one would produce one absurd genus name after another trying to be
the LAST in such listing.  I'm sure there might be a new genus of insect
that makes such a buzzing sound that could be named "Zzzzzzz", or is
such an absurd name forbidden because it contains no vowels?                                                                
     One can only hope so (since they obviously are subject to
misspellings).  In any case, I am so fed up with increasing numbers of
dumb new generic names that I am sometimes embarrassed to admit that I
am a taxonomist.  Frankly, if someone names a new genus after Justin
Bieber just for the publicity value, I think that will be the last
straw.  Let's get back to Latin names that actually fundamentally have
something to do with the organisms themselves, not dumb
publicity-seeking sound-bites that make taxonomists sound like
politicians desperately seeking attention.      
        ------------Ken
-------------------------------------------------------
Previously posted:    
       At the risk of prolonging this... 
I have been to Zzyzx Road on several occasions (it is adjacent to a
field station west of the Kelso Dunes), and have seen specimens of the
wasp. The explanation I was given for the place name was that it was
desired to make it the absolute last entry in any gazetteer, and the
snail genus "Zyzzyxdonta" was explicitly named in order to make it the
very last genus name in any catalog or index. One would suspect,
therefore, that Pate's intention was similar. At the time he coined the
name, it WAS the last genus name - until Zyzzyxdonta was named in1976.
Unfortunately for both authors, it turns out that there was already a
genus "Zyzzyzus" (a hydroid) whose name had gone unrecognized since
1921, with it being incorrectly recorded in the literature as
"Zyzzygus". Thus, it now holds the last place in the Nomenclator
Zoologicus. 
Peace, 
-- 
Doug Yanega  Dept. of Entomology  Entomology Research Museum 
Univ. of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0314