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.

Dance music might be oh-so-90s right now, but as the wheel turns, one day you’ll need to brush up on the taxonomy of trance, or explain the heritage of hardcore to your disbelieving offspring (who will of course think that they invented the whole thing, about 10 years from now — face it, you’re getting old, B-Boy). And what better (and funnier) resource could there be than Ishkur’s Guide to Electronic Music? Lovingly weird diagrams show how the flavas feed off each other, there are plenty of streaming samples, and all the irreverant insight you could ask for. For example:

• Hip House:”It’s more popular than you think; people are just whack bitches and don’t give it their props like they should.”

This is the Word of Ishkur. Listen up.