© Steve Cary, November 28, 2024
In this post we feature Mike Toliver’s fascinating write-up about scientific names and nomenclature among butterflies. But I know some of you are eager to learn about the new name search function within BONM, so let’s hit that first.
PEEC’s Butterflies of New Mexico can now be searched for names, complete or partial, scientific or English. We routinely change butterfly names in BONM not because it is fun, but to keep up with published changes in butterfly taxonomy, which is essential, even adding common names as needed. Those changes usually come suddenly and without public announcement, making it difficult for you to track species of interest to you. Once we change the name in the original BONM index, how can you find your butterfly? How can you learn its new name?
I’m delighted to announce that the Butterflies of New Mexico can now be searched for individual butterfly names: common (English) names as well as scientific (Latin) names. The main page of BONM is headed by “Introduction and Index” and the new “search” function is at the upper right (at least on my computer).
How does it work? Within WordPress, PEEC and BONM, a “page” is a butterfly family (e.g., Swallowtails, Papilionidae) or a subfamily (e.g., Longwings, Nymphalidae: Heliconiinae). Each index page begins with a paragraph or two and then shows a bulleted list of the species we cover in that page. Each bullet includes the current common (English) name and the scientific (Latin) name. The scientific name has a hyperlink which takes you directly to the account for that species. Each species account is headed by the current common and scientific names, but within the text are names of subspecies, forms, as well as prior names or synonyms that are no longer in use. We are adding all those names to the index bullet for every species where they can be found by the search program.
For example, on the Hairstreaks index page the index bullet for Dryope Hairstreak used to look like this: Dryope Hairstreak (Satyrium dryope). Now it looks like this: Dryope Hairstreak (Satyrium dryope itys) Satyrium dryope putnami, Sylvan Hairstreak, Satyrium sylvinus. If you search for this butterfly under any of the names in the new bullet, even just “sylvan” or “sylvinus,” or if you search for its New Mexico subspecies, itys or putnami, the search tool will find it here. Then click on the hyperlinked <Satyrium dryope> and you will zoom to the account that has all these old and new names.
Ready to give it a go? First, type a name you seek into the “search” box and then <enter>. Look over what the program finds, see the yellow highlighted word(s). Next, click on <Read More> and the program takes you to the appropriate family or subfamily page and highlights the word(s) you entered, all within the bullet for the current species your search term goes with. Finally, click the hyperlink for that bulleted species and the program takes you to that species account and highlights word(s) you searched for. As they say in the higher circles of IT lingo, “Bob’s your uncle.” Well, “Bob” still has to do some work to incorporate all the old names into the bullets for our ~400 species, but he’s getting there.
A couple of cautionary notes. Think a bit about your search term. Searching for those words for routine, everyday words such as “common” or “black” could produce a bulky response which you would then have to search through visually. You can search for a trinomial (e.g., Pyrisitia nise nelphe), but more words create more opportunities to run aground on misspellings or other errors, by you and by us! I’d encourage you to be as precise as is reasonable given your search goal.
What’s In a (Scientific) Name? by Mike Toliver. Marta Reece’s comments about difficulties with butterfly names helps me think more about the roles names play in our favorite activity – studying butterflies. Marta is justifiably concerned with the instability of both common and scientific names and the inability to find what she’s looking for. Our site now allows one to search for common names and scientific names of New Mexico’s butterflies. The scientific names are the subject of this blog. The current revolution in butterfly names, prompted by research into genetic codes, presents us with many new names making it very difficult to keep up. I hope this blog will clarify some of the complications we face and also address the issue of stability – a name for a particular species would be most useful if it just stayed the same!
Scientific names are the universal language of scientists. In a previous blog, I discussed the common names of butterflies and pointed out that scientists, by and large, use scientific names when writing and discussing critters. Let me review just what a scientific name is and how it has become the universal language of scientists. Forgive me if this is “old hat” to you, but we need to start from a common point to get to issues such as stability and the appearance of new names.
Scientific names are part of a naming system called “binomial nomenclature.” What this tells you is that a scientific name, as normally used, has two parts – the genus name and the species name. It was the brainchild of Carl Linnaeus back in the mid-1700s. When scientists of that time discussed particular species, they used a descriptive Latin name which was supposed to describe the important features of the species. Thus, Malva folis cordatis crenatis tomentofis was the name of a species in the Mallow family of plants and each of those words was supposed to convey something distinctive about that plant (sorry, my Latin isn’t up to a translation – I got a D in Latin in junior high school and that was a gift). You can see how that could get really cumbersome as more and more distinctive characters were recognized and added! Linnaeus decided that he could shorten this descriptor by grouping species that were similar in appearance into one group (the genus) and then giving each particular species its own name. The aforementioned Malva folis etc. thus became Malva sylvestris in Linnean terms. Linnaeus intended only to provide a short-hand way to reference various species; he believed all species were created by God according to the Bible, and he was just finishing the work of Adam since Adam got kicked out of paradise before he finished naming all God’s creatures.
Linnaeus was part of a group known as “natural theologians.” Natural theologians believed they could discern God’s purposes and existence by examining His creations. Perhaps the most famous example of this is William Paley’s “watchmaker analogy” – an argument from design. Paley argued for the existence of God through this analogy: if I found a watch lying on the beach, I would immediately presume that somewhere there is a watchmaker since there is no way elements on the beach could spontaneously assemble themselves into a watch. When I find natural objects (butterflies, for example), way more complicated than a watch, I must presume the existence of a mindful “Watchmaker” – God. Well, along comes Charles Darwin and he throws a monkey wrench into all those arguments from design.
There was no real scientific purpose (other than ease of communication) in scientific names until Darwin appeared on the scene. The young Darwin would have fit in well with the natural theologians (he actually studied to be a minister), but the more he examined nature, the more he became convinced that species changed; they weren’t the unchangeable products of God’s creation but rather the result of a natural process – evolution! Evolution was the process by which a “watch” (complicated critter, like a butterfly) could indeed be assembled from natural objects through the action of natural selection, among other evolutionary actions.
Darwin revolutionized biology (and in many ways all science), and that applied to binomial nomenclature, too. Why did species in the same genus resemble one another more closely than other species? They must have evolved from a recent common ancestor – the “mother” of all the species in the genus! Taxonomists rather quickly understood that scientific names conveyed more useful information than initially had been intended by Linnaeus, especially evolutionary relationships.
Nomenclature includes other levels of relationship beyond closely related species in a particular genus. There are a number of traditional categories, such as “family” (ex. Nymphalidae – Brush-foots), “order” (such as Lepidoptera), “phylum” (Arthropoda) and so on; each indicating higher levels of evolutionary relationship. Thus, members of the same family share a common ancestor, but that common ancestor resides in a past more remote than members of the same genus. For example, Fritillaries and Gemmed Satyrs share a common ancestor, but that common ancestor (a great-great-great grandmother) existed in a time preceding the one all Gemmed Satyrs share. Members of the same order share a common ancestor, but that ancestor (a great-great-great-great-great grandmother) resides in a past even more remote than members of the same family. Sphinx moths and butterflies share a common ancestor, but that ancestor comes from a time much older than the one which all butterflies share. It’s the tree of life!
Since Darwin revolutionized taxonomy, there have been on-going efforts to refine these categories. Those efforts have really taken off with the advent of DNA sequencing. Now, scientists could look at the genetic make-up of species and compare them (using sophisticated software) and generate trees of relationships (“family trees”) more precisely. Without getting into a lot of detail, the result has been a multiplication of categories to describe those evolutionary relationships (“subfamily,” “tribe,” “subtribe” et cetera – all the way up to “Domain” – see the Tree of Life project http://tolweb.org/tree/). DNA sequencing has also revealed “hidden” species (Staphylus ecos Grishin, for example). Here’s a sample of the various levels one would go through, starting with the most inclusive (i.e., most distant in time) in order to see the various categories (signifying various levels of evolutionary relationships) to which Cyllopsis pertepida dorothea belongs: Domain (Eukaryota, includes all critters with nucleated cells), Unikonts, Opisthokonts, Metazoa (animals!), Bilateria, Ecdysozoa, Arthropoda (Phylum), Hexapoda (insects and their relatives), Insecta, Pterygota, Neoptera, Endopterygota, Lepidoptera (Order), Neolepidoptera, Heteroneura, Ditrysia, Apoditrysia, Obtectomera, Macrolepidoptera, Rhopalocera (butterflies!), Papilionoidea, Nymphalidae (Family), Satyrinae, Satyrini, Euptychiina, Cyllopsis (Genus), pertepida (Species), dorothea (Subspecies). Whew! And that doesn’t include some other levels of relationship (subgenus, for example)! Evolutionary relationships are complicated.
That’s the long way around Robin Hood’s barn to get to the concerns raised by Marta in her piece. The original goal of scientific names was simplifying communication, and that implies stability. However, with the advent of evolutionary thinking, a second equally important goal of scientific names became the expressing of relationships. That goal is one benefit of scientific names; if you know that Canyonland Satyr is a member of the genus Cyllopsis then you know something about Cyllopsis argentella, even if you’ve never seen it.
Expressing relationships is an important part of communication, but it often conflicts with stability. In the interests of stability, the Cloudless Sulphur ought to be the Cloudless Sulphur now and forever; it should always be Phoebis sennae and that’s that! If what we’ve been calling the Cloudless Sulphur suddenly becomes the Marcellina Sulphur (Phoebis sennae suddenly “becomes” Phoebis marcellina), how is communication preserved? Well, communication changes, because our understanding of evolutionary relationships changed; but it certainly doesn’t help stability.
It doesn’t help that our understanding of evolutionary relationships is incomplete. Cong, et al (2016) examined Phoebis sennae across its range using nuclear DNA sequences and concluded that what we had been calling Phoebis sennae marcellina (a subspecies of sennae) was in fact a separate species as was the common Cloudless Sulphur of the SE US (Phoebis sennae eubule, now Phoebis eubule). Our understanding of evolutionary relationships was improved, but at the cost of stability. To make matters even more complicated, Núñez and his co-workers (2019) agreed that P. marcellina was a separate species from sennae, but eubule was not. And if you look at the butterflies of America web site (Jonathan Pelham’s catalogue https://www.butterfliesofamerica.com/US-Can-Cat.htm), you’ll see that Pelham still lists marcellina and eubule as subspecies of sennae.
What does that disagreement among experts mean for us and our users? Steve and I endeavor to present you information on each species found, or in some cases likely to be found, in New Mexico, and we want to be as accurate as possible. That means attempting to be “current” with on-going research, but we will never have “the answer.” Science never provides certainty, but it does provide the best we have to offer – a process to keep us all moving toward certainty. Our challenge, as presented by Marta, is how to do that in an accessible way for you, our users. We welcome any thoughts you have on how we can best accomplish that.
Turns out, there is a lot in a name! And there’s more: currently there’s a movement to purge scientific names of names some people find objectionable, for example Anophthalmus hitleri Scheibel 1937 (a cave beetle found in Slovenia and named to “honor” Adolf Hitler); similar to a movement to purge common names of such objectionable names. Perhaps that’s worth another blog, but you can imagine how such purges, should they be successful, would compromise communication even more – perhaps fatally. We’ll keep you posted!
Happy Thanksgiving!