Question:

[trishtrash]

Does anyone have more fun naming things than palaeontologists?

Comments

[gingervere]

Does anyone have more fun than paleontologists, period?

I saw that earlier and it made my day...I really wonder if the "Daemon" part is secretly a His Dark Materials reference...

[cat63]

Probably just a consequence of habitually naming things in Latin :-)

[gingervere]

Probably, but after Dracorex hogwartsia, I'll believe anything...

[trishtrash]

I'd missed this one, which, on Wiki'ing, I am delighted with :) (even if it is a juvenile of a previously registered type).

I read The Ghost with Trembling Wings: Science, Wishful Thinking and the Search for Lost Species last year (which I would absolutely recommend to you as a fan of the thylacine - the author actually goes looking for one); from it, I learned that the Loch Ness Monster has a Latin classification - Nessiteras rhombopteryx ... just in case it ever turns out to be real.

[elegaer]

Nope! We are the best and have the best names for things :D

[trishtrash]

Hey, really? I thought your area of expertise was creatures and environments that were, well, extant?

[elegaer]

Tis now, but I did my PhD in fish palaeontology :D

[hitchhiker]

programmers :)

[trishtrash]

I think the naming of dinosaurs gives palaeontologists the edge on this one. I'm sure programmers have fun... I just don't think they've named anything based on its number of teeth. Unless I'm entirely mistaken about what it is programmers do (let us not discount this possibility).

[kirke]

If my brother has seen a cat twice, he has a name for it.

[trishtrash]

All true 'cat people' do this. If you don't, you are merely masquerading as a cat person. Imposter!

[nickmurdoch]

I generally go for "Cat" :)

[jaelle_n_gilla]

It was always my dream to find some old bones and be the one to name them. Alas - I should have stayed in science for that :)