Re: Bambiraptor feinbergi

[Dinogeorge@aol.com]

In a message dated 4/8/00 7:05:30 PM EST, KiernanCR@aol.com writes:

<< Because taxonomy, like morphology, ecology, physiology, stratigraphy, and 
so 
 forth, is a tool for organizing and understanding data, and matters of 
 nomenclature are a critical part of that tool. Which is why we have rules, 
 the written kind that the ICZN manages, and the unwritten kind, that ought 
to 
 be almost as important. Nomenclature isn't something inconvenient to be 
 quickly dispensed with, an inconvenient prologue to some part of biology 
that 
 you might personally happen to find more interesting. The naming of a new 
 dinosaur may be a relatively simple matter, but it should still be handled 
as 
 rigorously and thoughtfully (and respectfully) as the study of its evolution 
 or habits. >>

Don't see how this follows. If naming dinosaurs is fun, why shouldn't we have 
a few humorous names every now and then? I don't think Bambiraptor is all 
that bad a name; at least it's short and easily pronounceable. (You'd go nuts 
with some of the names we mathematicians have been bandying about for 
four-dimensional figures, such as "quit sissid," "srico," "stepdady," and 
"icannixady." If you try for the usual Greekish names such "dodecahedron" and 
"icosahedron," the corresponding names of 4D figures get >miles< long, e.g., 
"small prismatohexacosihecatonicosachoron" [one of the simpler ones].)