What’s That Animal Called? I
magine four friends fishing the Milk a minute). Though the multiple monikers can River near Havre one summer after- be fun, illuminating, and descriptive—think noon. After splitting up for a few hours, “speed goat” for pronghorn or “spoonbill” for they rejoin and swap stories. One an- paddlefish—they can also create confusion. gler says she caught and released a “gray Your “polecat” might be my “stink weasel,” bass”; another landed a “croaker”; the third without either of us knowing we’re both talkcaught a “grunter”; while the fourth hooked ing about the striped skunk. Further complia nice “sheepshead.” cating matters are scientists who continue to If you didn’t know these nicknames, change animal names and reclassify species you’d have no idea that all four refer to the based on new DNA science. same fish: freshwater drum. A Northern European naturalist devised Ever since humans developed language, a nearly foolproof scientific naming solution we have been inventing names for animals, nearly four centuries ago. Yet confusion still plants, and other species—and then puzzling remains—a result of local pride, cultural traover the names. This process of devising or dition, human movement between regions assigning labels, known as nomenclature, is and continents, and even disagreements essential for scientists studying living organ- among the very experts whose job it is to isms. For the rest of us, knowing the names clarify animal names. of animals allows us to talk about them with each other. It also creates intimacy with those creatures so we can better understand and appreciate them. Robin Wall Kimmerer, noted author and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment at the State University of New York, considers naming a way to know the true essence of an organism. “Finding the words is another step in learning to see,” she writes. Each species has several different names—ranging from localized slang to Latinized taxonomy (which we’ll get to in
nicknames we use now were coined by Europeans who, upon visiting the American West, saw unfamiliar animals and named them for similar species back home.
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UH-KA-SHE and TAHTO’KANAH North Americans have been naming fish and wildlife ever since humans arrived here from Asia thousands of years ago. Over time, each group developed its own word in its own language to identify, for instance, the large mammals we today call moose, the fish-eating raptors known as ospreys, and the barking communal rodents commonly called prairie dogs. In Prairie Ghost: Pronghorn and Human Interaction in Early America, authors Richard E. McCabe, Bart W. O’Gara, and Henry M. Reeves documented more than 220 different names given to the pronghorn by roughly 100 tribes across the West— including, in today’s Montana, uh-ka-she (Apsáalooke), tahto’kanah (Assiniboine), and choo ool le (Salish). When Europeans arrived, even more names were invented, as zoologists and government officials began “discovering” species and applying new scientific labels. Meanwhile explorers, hunters, and others affixed their own nicknames—sometimes several for the same creature. Lewis and Clark, for instance, used 10 different names for the sagegrouse they observed during their 1805-06
DIGITAL COMPOSITIONS WITH PUBLIC DOMAIN IMAGES BY LUKE DURAN. FRESHWATER DRUM ILLUSTRATION BY WILLIAM B. GILLETTE, 1907.
The oft-confusing common names, nicknames, and misnomers of fish and wildlife—and how a Swedish naturalist in the mid-1700s tried to clear things up. BY TOM DICKSON
journey, including “long-tailed heath cock” bright crimson wing patches. Others are winged insects but isn’t a hawk at all. named for their places of official “discov- It’s actually related to whip-poor-wills. and “prairie fowl.” ery,” such as the Idaho giant salamander. One of the most vexing name-related Some names honor people who originally challenges for Montana Fish, Wildlife & TAXING TAXONOMY In addition to the unique scientific name for identified or helped collect the species for Parks staff is when someone calls to report a each species is its “common name.” These science, like the Richardson’s ground squir- “brown bear.” Most likely they are seeing a are determined by taxonomists—biologists rel (named for Sir John Richardson, a Cana- black bear, the species Ursus americanus, who specialize in naming and classifying dian physician who collected specimens in which can be a black, brown, or cinnamon species with organizations like the American Saskatchewan in the 1820s). “phase.” Yet the caller could mean a grizzly Though taxonomy aims to reduce confu- bear, a protected species that FWP must Fisheries Society and the Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles. Taxono- sion and misidentification, some official manage under strict federal provisions. mists base their decisions on factors like his- labels create more problems than they solve. That’s because the grizzly, found in the torical usage, contemporary usage, and new For instance, little brown bat sounds like a Alaskan and western interior, including description, like “little brown bird,” but is Montana, is the same species (Urus arctos scientific information. Many common names are derived from actually the common name of the bat horribilus) as the brown bear species, which an animal’s highly visible features, like the species Myotis lucifugus. Another puzzler is lives along the Alaskan coast. In other westslope cutthroat trout’s vivid orange the common nighthawk, which looks hawk- words, there can be a big difference between neck slashes or the red-winged blackbird’s like as it swoops overhead at dusk eating “a” brown bear and “the” brown bear.
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