{"id":860,"date":"2014-04-17T19:07:24","date_gmt":"2014-04-17T19:07:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/ernstmayrlibrary\/?p=860"},"modified":"2014-04-17T19:07:24","modified_gmt":"2014-04-17T19:07:24","slug":"whats-in-a-name-emmett-reid-dunn-and-the-oedipus-salamanders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ernstmayrlibrary\/2014\/04\/17\/whats-in-a-name-emmett-reid-dunn-and-the-oedipus-salamanders\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s in a name? Emmett Reid Dunn and the Oedipus salamanders"},"content":{"rendered":"

When scientists describe a new animal species, they give it a name, according to rules of the ICZN, the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0 Species names can honor a person or the place where the animal lives, or reflect the personality of the describer, as in the case of the beetle Gelae donut<\/em> (Miller and Wheeler 2004).\u00a0 Emmet Reid Dunn (1894-1956), who earned his PhD at Harvard under Thomas Barbour, expressed his sense of humor when naming salamanders.\u00a0 Dunn\u2019s 1921 dissertation on the Plethodontidae was expanded and published in 1926 as The Salamanders of the Family Plethodontidae<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0 Of the eight Oedipus<\/em> salamanders that Dunn described there, two stand out: Oedipus rex<\/em> and Oedipus complex<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Because names change as scientific knowledge advances, both of these names have been revised into ordinariness.\u00a0\u00a0 In 1944, E.H. Taylor reassigned the species within the genus Oedipus<\/em> to eight separate genera, including\u00a0Oedipina<\/em>(Keferstein 1868) and the new genus\u00a0Pseudoeurycea<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Below are references for the type descriptions, the Taylor 1944 and the Encyclopedia of Life entries for both.\u00a0\u00a0 The new names are more accurate, but not as clever!<\/p>\n

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/<\/p>\n

Oedipus rex<\/em>, sp.nov. described by E.R. Dunn in 1921.<\/p>\n

Common name, Royal False Brook Salamander.<\/p>\n

E.R. Dunn, \u201cTwo new Central American salamanders\u201d, Proceedings of the Biology Society of Washington vol. 34, pg. 143-146 (1921)<\/p>\n

EOL record for\u00a0Pseudoeurycea rex<\/em>:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0http:\/\/eol.org\/pages\/1019116\/overview<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Pseudoeurycea rex \u00a9 2006 Sean Michael Rovito Source: CalPhotos<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/<\/p>\n

E.H. Taylor, \u201cThe genera of Plethodont Salamanders in Mexico, Pt. 1.\u201d, Univ. of Kansas Science Bulletin vol. 30, pg. 189-232 (1944).<\/p>\n

Oedipus complex<\/em>, sp.nov. described by E.R. Dunn in 1924.<\/p>\n

Common name, Gamboa worm salamander.<\/p>\n

E.R. Dunn, \u201cNew Amphibians from Panama\u201d, Occasional Papers of the Boston Society of Natural History vol. 5, pg 93-95 (1924).<\/p>\n

EOL record for\u00a0Oedipina complex<\/em>:\u00a0\u00a0http:\/\/eol.org\/pages\/2815206\/overview\/<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Oedipina complex \u00a9 STRI<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When scientists describe a new animal species, they give it a name, according to rules of the ICZN, the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature.\u00a0\u00a0 Species names can honor a person or the place where the animal lives, or reflect the personality of the describer, as in the case of the beetle Gelae donut (Miller and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4587,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6wyvD-dS","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ernstmayrlibrary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ernstmayrlibrary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ernstmayrlibrary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ernstmayrlibrary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4587"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ernstmayrlibrary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=860"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ernstmayrlibrary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/860\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":865,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ernstmayrlibrary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/860\/revisions\/865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ernstmayrlibrary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ernstmayrlibrary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ernstmayrlibrary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}