BigShinyThing

Last year the name of a Bolivian monkey was bought in an online auction for $650,000 by the online casino Golden Palace. Now Golden Palace’s entire marketing strategy is based on doing quirky things in order to generate publicity — they are the proud owners of William Shatner’s gallstone, for instance. That is not The Economist’s concern however — this article is more interested in the science of taxonomy and the issue of inspiration.

That Bolivian monkey is now the proud owner of the moniker Callicebus Aureipalatii and The Economist thinks that there is a marketing opportunity in branded taxonomies:

Notwithstanding recent discoveries in New Guinea (the ‘lost world’ reported this week) few biologists these days have flashy mammals and birds to hawk around. But a little imagination might find sponsors for lesser creatures. For, while a wealthy airline (if any still exist) might aspire to a Papuan bird of paradise, its low-cost confrere could consider something a bit more within its budget - a butterfly perhaps? And which building society would not be seriously tempted by its own bee? These humble yet hard working animals save in the summer to survive through the winter - and build their own homes, to boot. Neglected molluscs could, meanwhile, be snapped up by Shell, while moth taxonomy would certainly be boosted by the interest of the construction firm, Caterpillar.

The article has a nice sign off, too:

Detractors of such horrid commercialisation there will no doubt be. But they might consider that taxonomists have been amusing themselves quietly for years, as names as Colon rectum (a beetle), Ba humbugi (a snail), Oedipus complex (a salamander) and Ytu brutus (a beetle) attest. Besides, how much disrepute could commerce really bring to the discipline what brought the world Trombicula fujigmo, a mite whose name is an acronym for ‘fuck you Jack, I got my orders’.

Pictured is our own BST-sponsored creature, Monstrum mirabile visu — a new type of echidna. More about the state of taxonomy and a proposed ‘ZooBank’ of names is available on the The Economist site.