Ouch! A mouse is pulling a winter melon!

Audit expert: Li Weiyang

Well-known science writer

Come, repeat with me: Why is there a mouse pulling a winter melon? Guess how many names of creatures are there in this sentence (Mustela wormwood, Euonymus, Citron, Mouse pulling a winter melon)? In addition to the obvious names of "Mustela wormwood", "Euonymus", "Citrus", "Mouse", and "Winter melon", there is also a rather strange name hidden in this sentence: "Mouse pulling a winter melon".

Source: Wikipedia

In nature, there are many creatures that have been given some strange names in human cognition, and the above sentence is an example. The strangest one among them may be "mouse pulling winter melon".

Mustela eversmanii is a mustelid, and Euonymus alatus is a plant belonging to the genus Euonymus. Euonymus alatus may be named because the cork wings on its branches are shaped like arrow feathers, or "wei", and the buds at the top of the branches look like spearheads.

So what is the "mouse-pulling winter melon"? In fact, it is a plant of the Cucurbitaceae family, called horse chestnut (Zehneria). Previously, there was a popular fruit called "thumb watermelon" that belongs to this type of plant. It is called "mouse-pulling winter melon" because its fruit is very small and looks like a small winter melon, and its root looks like a gray mouse, so it was given such a strange name.

The flowers, leaves and fruits of the mouse-pulled winter melon

Source: Wikipedia

After reading this, do you have a question: Won’t such a strange name of an organism cause ambiguity and misunderstanding?

Confusion caused by different names

In fact, this ambiguity does exist, and it does cause some inconvenience to a certain extent.

For example, when we mention "white mice" used in experiments, this term actually refers to all rodents used in animal experiments, including rats (Rattus norvegicus) and mice (Mus musculus). However, different types of experimental mice are needed for different types of experiments. If we only say "white mice", it may be ambiguous for people who are not familiar with it.

Albino rat source 丨 Wikipedia

Of course, in actual experimental operations, researchers will use "rats", "mice" or other terms to refer to experimental animals, and will not simply use the term "white mice" to refer to them in general.

In daily life, the confusion caused by names is even more obvious. For example, the plant Solanum tuberosum is called "potato" in most parts of my country, "yang yams" in Yunnan, "shanyaodan" in Shanxi, "potato" in the northeast, and "shuzai" in Guangdong... Do you think this thing has enough names? But in fact, it has other names in some other places, such as "earth eggs", "earth beans", "Dutch potatoes", etc., and even some places call it "sweet potatoes".

Solanum tuberosum Source: Wikipedia

Obviously, if people from different places get together to describe the potato tuber, there will be some misunderstandings.

Some friends may ask, "Isn't its scientific name potato? Why not use the scientific name?"

Here we need to correct a common misunderstanding. Whether in some popular science videos or popular science articles, we always habitually call the commonly accepted Chinese names of a species their "scientific names". But in fact, these Chinese names are not "scientific names", but should be called "official names" or "Chinese official names". As for the "scientific name", it is another matter, we will talk about it later.

Let me emphasize one point: when it comes to naming biological species, all Chinese “scientific names” are not rigorous!

The reason why the Chinese word "school name" is often used in the Chinese context may be due to the "training name" given to children by their teachers in the old days. Because it is given when entering school, it is also called a school name, so it also has a "formal" meaning. For example, in "Dream of Red Mansions", it is written: "This Mr. Xue's school name is Xue Pan, and his courtesy name is Wenlong."

So what is the “scientific name”?

In the scientific community, the only "scientific name" that can represent an organism is a Latin or Latinized name that is created by the namer in accordance with the biological naming rules for biological species (using binomial nomenclature and complying with relevant biological naming regulations) for each organism or each taxonomic group of organisms, and is used worldwide.

The first person to invent binomial nomenclature for naming organisms was Gaspard Bauhin, a Swiss scientist during the Renaissance. However, Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus first proposed in Systema Naturae (10th Edition) published in 1758 to introduce the system previously used for plant classification and naming into the animal kingdom, using Latin genus name + specific epithet to systematically name animals. Since then, binomial nomenclature has gradually been accepted by the international academic community and has become a common academic naming method for all biological species.

Carl Linnaeus Source: Wikipedia

The scientific name of each species consists of two parts: the genus name and the specific epithet (also called the specific epithet). The genus name is formed by a Latinized noun, but its etymology can be composed of words from Latin or Greek, or other Latinized words (such as Chinese pinyin), and the first letter should be capitalized.

Specific epithets are mostly Latinized adjectives with the first letter not capitalized. Some taxonomists may not strictly follow Latin grammar, but scientific names are always considered to be Latin. It is customary in printed scientific literature to use italics when referring to scientific names, or to underline them in the original form.

From a scientific point of view, each species has only one scientific name that can represent it academically, so there is no ambiguity. For example, the scientific name of our human beings (Homo sapiens) is Homo sapiens. Homo is the genus name, that is, the genus Homo, and sapiens is the specific epithet.

Of course, in daily life and everyday language, if we must use scientific names to refer to all organisms, not only will it be difficult for the listeners to understand, but the speakers will also have a hard time. So in normal contexts, when referring to various organisms, we can just use the commonly accepted Chinese names, and there is no need to be so strict and use Latin to cause trouble for ourselves.

Here is a small homework for you. In this article, how many genus names of organisms appear?