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: Abudefduf
Don’t get it? There's not much to get really, it's just a funny word. The name is from the Arabic abu meaning "father", def meaning "side", and the intensive plural ending -duf. So the name means "father with prominent sides".
What is it? A genus of fish which includes the sergeant major - a species which will be familiar to many a tropical snorkeller.
Where are they found? All around the tropical and sub-tropical coastlines.
When was it first named? Way back in 1775.
Who deserves the credit? Peter Forsskål, a Swedish naturalist who was a student of Linnaeus himself.
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Is there a picture? Yep - click the image to get the full picture of a shoal of sergeant majors. There are at least 25 species in the genus Abudefduf. The most notable from our point of view are A. barffi and A. sordidus. We can only guess what these two poor little fellas did to deserve such unflattering names. Check out some other weird species names here.
Null's other regular features:
Monday: Phunny Phobias
Wednesday: Doctor Doctor
Thursday: Peculiar Periodicals
Friday: End of week timewasters
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