Wonderpus Scientific name

[marinebio_guy]

The scientific name for the wonderpus is Wonderpus photogenicus From work that will soon be published by Hochberg, Norman, Finn.

 

[monty]

That's a great name!

As long as this thread has wonderpus fans' attention, anyone have any ideas on what I should do with http://wonderp.us/ ?

 

[Jean]

The scientific name for the wonderpus is Wonderpus photogenicus From work that will soon be published by Hochberg, Norman, Finn.

I love it!!

J

 

[Graeme]

Oh good! That's absolutely peachy news!

 

[Colin]

What about the spelling? Its quite often written as 'wunderpus' too

 

[cthulhu77]

Hmm. Hate to be on the off-side, but it seems rather "kitch-ey" doesn't it? I think Steve Irwin had more influence on the scientific community than we gave him credit for.

 

[DHyslop]

Not necessarily, people have been creative with names for a while. The name made it through the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature and Hochberg et al.'s reviewers; and I suspect Irwin didn't have much effect on either

 

[cthulhu77]

I don't know if that says something good about the scientific world, or something bad. You are correct in the influence of Irwin on the naming though.

 

[cephalopodcast]

Odd taxonomy

Phunny. I just did a blog post about anomalous binomials. Updated the post with this new one. Check it out. Thanks.

Or go directly to the source, Mark Issak, to find evidence of more taxonomic humor:
http://home.earthlink.net/~misaak/taxonomy.html

 

[monty]

wunderpus photogenicus, not wonderpus

I finally dug up the actual paper, and confirmed that the official name is actually Wunderpus photogenicus. Just to clear up any confusion.

 

[WhiteKiboko]

Now the groundwork has been laid for Notoctopus norsepia!

 

[Steve O'Shea]

Noto meaning southern - it's a simple southern octopus. I had thought about this years back, wanting to create Notoctopus, Nonoctopus, Noroctopus ... but thought it a frivolous.