nomenclature
sb admin | May 5, 2009A few days ago I noticed the search term "Malagasy Mystery Ant" showing up in the stats for my other blog. This puzzled me, as it wasn't a phrase I was familiar with. So I googled it.
All mentions of the term trace back to a caption in the New York Times slide show from last week. Goodness. I- your humble blogger- had coined it myself, in a haze of deadline fever while submitting images for the slide show. And then, apparently, I forgot all about it.
Mystrium oberthueri
Am I going senile already? I hope not.
The problem with insects is their sheer number. There are millions of…
awild | September 10, 2008
Meet the European Paper Wasp, Polistes dominulus. Or is it Polistes dominula? Most biologists I know refer to this common Holarctic insect as P. dominulus, but I've just learned via Bugguide.net that the common spelling is a grammatical misunderstanding of the original latin:
Explanation of Names
Female ruler, lady, mistress:
From Latin dominus- "lord, ruler, master" (related English words: dominion, domain, dominate) + the diminutive suffix -ul- which adds the meaning "little", and a feminine ending.
Until recently treated as an adjective describing the masculine noun "Polistes",…