What’s in a Name?
Over the past few years, I have written about a wide variety of birds and other wildlife in my garden, some of who were named after specific individuals. For instance, Gambel’s Quail were named for William Gambel, a naturalist from Philadelphia who traveled to the southwest in the early 1840’s. He collected (killed and preserved) specimens of several “new” plants, birds, and reptile species, and shared them with colleagues in the eastern US. Wildlife named after him include the Gambel’s Quail (Callipepia gambelii), the Mountain Chickadee (Parus gambeli), and a genus of southwest leopard lizards (Gambelia). Because the rules on “new species” nomenclature prohibit people from naming living things after themselves but give them the ability to name them after someone else, someone who liked or respected William Gambel chose those names. Hmmmm, what could be a problem with that? This month’s article is an invitation to consider a few reasons why the practice of naming things