Nutty Nomenclature
All species of organism are given their own specific name by the taxonomist who first describes them. Every now and again the taxonomists allow themselves to have a little bit of fun. This is our guide to some more mischievously named species.
Name: Cuttysarkus mcnallyi
Don’t get it? The Cutty Sark is a particularly fine, if slightly charred, ship. More importantly it is also a brand of whisky. The word on the street is that the man who named it had been promised a bottle of scotch for the next fossil he found.
What is it? A 65 million year old salamander known only from the fossil record.
Where was it found? Wyoming.
When was it first named? 1964.
Who deserves the credit? Richard Estes, a renowned palaeoherpetologist - that's someone who studies amphibian and reptile fossils to you and me. Estes later realised that Cuttysarkus was actually the same as another salamander. The species is now boringly known as Prodesmodon copei, still it is extinct so it probably doesn't care too much
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Is there a picture? No. Only a few bones have been found which wouldn't make for a very interesting photograph anyway. So instead we've taken this picture of a small salamander and tried (not very hard) to make it look like a great, scary prehistoric salamander - not that prehistoric salamanders were particularly big scary, most of them were normal salamander sized (click image to enlarge).Check out some other strange species names here.
You might also like some Peculiar Periodicals or Phunny Phobias.
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