common or scientific names?

[Snakeman]

just wondering, in this forum, do you mainly use common names for reptiles or sientific names mainly? or both/either? as a tarantula keeper, i have to mainly deal with scientific names with are a pain to remember/pronounce.i've seen that you mainly use common names(which a good thing).

[recycling goddess]

i think it's up to the individual poster.

[jhall1468]

The snake keepers tend to use the common names the most, at least on most of the forums I visit. Personally, it doesn't make sense to me to use the scientific name unless your in a scientific discussion. I'm a bad enough speller as it is .

[Mendel's Balls]

For snakes in general the choice between the common name of a species and the name of the organism in binomial nomenclature matters much less than the distinction between the two for an insect or an arachnid.

There are a crap load of insects on this planet. Common names for insects are much less specific to a species than common names for snakes.

For example, the common name fruit fly is a very, very unspecific term! There are many species and even genera of fruit flies. When you say fruit fly, you could be talking about Drosophilia melanogaster.....the lab fruit fly used by molecular and developmental geneticists to study the Hox genes. Or you could be talking about several other species within the genus Drosophila..........here's just a partial list of other Drosophila species.

• Drosophila (Sophophora) simulans
• Drosophila (Sophophora) sechellia
• Drosophila (Sophophora) yakuba
• Drosophila (Sophophora) erecta
• Drosophila (Sophophora) ananassae
• Drosophila (Sophophora) pseudoobscura
• Drosophila (Sophophora) persimilis
• Drosophila (Sophophora) willistoni
• Drosophila (Drosophila) mojavensis
• Drosophila (Drosophila) virilis
• Drosophila (Drosophila) grimshawi

Also when you say fruit fly you could be identifying something even broader-an entirely different family (Tephritidae) of organisms!

In contrast, for snakes it is more likely that there is a one to one correspondence between the common name and scientific name. In case of the namesake species of this site, there is a two to one correspondence. The names Ball or Royal Python specifiy the scientific name Python regius. So you see there is much less ambiguity in the common names of snakes than there are for other groups of animals. This doesn't mean that there isn't any ambiguity. In fact, looking at some of Kara's posts under the blood python section you'll see the use of highly specific trinomial nomenclature used at times. I've also seen this used for boas.

Interestingly, some North American herpetologists have recently attempted to standardized the common names of species native to the United States and Canada. Here's where they attempt to do this.....

Boundy, J., Campbell, J., Crother, B., & Taggart, T. (2000).
Squamata—Snakes. In Moriarty, J. J. (Ed.), Scientific and Standard
Names of Amphibians and Reptiles of North America
North of Mexico, with Comments Regarding Confidence in Our Understanding (pp. 56–74). Society for the Study of Amphibians
and Reptiles Herpetological Circular No. 29.

To date this has not been attempted for imported snakes.

So you see there is probably a good reason why those tarantula folks are more anal about using scientific names than us snake folks. Spiders and insects are both in the phylum Arthropoda, where biodiversity rules!

A great question though!

[tmlowe5704]

Most people who say scientific name do so just for their T's(tarantulas). I don't think people call any other animals anything other than their common name here.

[daniel1983]

"scientific" names are commonly used when discussing reptiles to some extent. You will find alot of abbreviations or 'nicknames' that come from the scientific name of the animal.....for example,

When talking about boas, you will commonly see the abbreviations BCI or BCC....which stand for boa constrictor imperator and boa constrictor constrictor....

Use of scientfic nomenclature is also somewhat common when discussing carpet pythons, some colubrids, and monitor lizards....especially when speaking of subspecies...however the names are generally shortened....such as saying 'mcdowelli' instead of Morelia spilota mcdowelli when refering to Coastal Carpet Pythons.....or 'storri' instead of saying varanus storri storri when talking about Storr's goannas......or 'coxi' instead of saying Oreocryptophis porphyraceus coxi when speaking of Red Mountain Racers.....

....it is more of a 'lingo' than anything scientific....nothing to be too concerned over...since 90% of people use common names.

[Shelby]

I know the scientific names of all the species I keep, but I don't use them on here except when talking of boas.. like BCC or BCI (short for boa constrictor imperator/constrictor)

[Mendel's Balls]

Use of scientfic nomenclature is also somewhat common when discussing carpet pythons, some colubrids, and monitor lizards....especially when speaking of subspecies...however the names are generally shortened....such as saying 'mcdowelli' instead of Morelia spilota mcdowelli when refering to Coastal Carpet Pythons.....or 'storri' instead of saying varanus storri storri when talking about Storr's goannas......or 'coxi' instead of saying Oreocryptophis porphyraceus coxi when speaking of Red Mountain Racers.....

Thanks for this info D!

I never really got what people said when they said "mcdowelli".....here it's just an abridgment of the trinominal nomenclature! They're just using the subspecies name! Excellent... Thanks for this insider's insight!

[recycling goddess]

i edited post #4 for mendel

[Mendel's Balls]

The Editor in Chief helps me out once again!