New species of the year
More creatures, less Latin used to describe them
By Susan Milius
2012 SCIENCE NEWS TOP 25: 21
A monkey with a blond mane and sky blue rear end was introduced to science this year. So was the first bacterium with calcium structures a bit like bones (SN: 6/2/12, p. 14), the world’s smallest fly (SN: 12/15/12, p. 32), a sponge shaped like a harp, a “cave robber” spider with fold-up claws (right) and a new species of priapiumfish, which sprout long mating structures underneath males’ chins. By the end of 2012, biologists will have described somewhere between 16,000 and 20,000 new species for the year.
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Of all these, one of the most remarkable was the description of Solanum umtuma, a prickly South African shrub related to eggplant. Anyone about to argue that, say, this year’s dragon millipedes trump a vegetable should read the Solanum paper’s diagnosis section, distinguishing the new species from old ones. It’s in English, marking the end of a requirement that a new plant, fungus or alga name was legitimate only if its diagnosis was in Latin.
Scientific names will still be in Latin. But starting in the brave new year of 2012, botanists can publish their summaries of distinctive traits in either Latin or English. And botanists will now accept online publication of names, as long as there’s deep archiving. Making paper optional is a bold change for scientists who expect the names they create to last for centuries.