This week's blog is another summary / overview kind of post, this one surveying names and nomenclatural history of temnospondyls; I needed something easy to do while fighting off jetlag from holiday travels - we'll start getting into fun(ctional) topics next week, starting with the peculiar yet ubiquitous temnospondyl ornamentation! P.S. this week's blog will appeal more to 100% nerds like me who are fascinated by the history of science and old names and such. Get rootedEtymology, or the study of word origins (not to be confused to entomology, or the study of insects), can provide insights into historical norms and conventions of the past. Names say a lot about what scientists thought of that organism at the time in how they choose to find a few old Latin or Greek roots and smash them together. Among the most famous extinct animal names are Tyrannosaurus ("tyrant lizard") and Brontosaurus ("thunder lizard"). Pretty impressive names. But what about temnospondyls? Considering that most people have never heard of temnospondyls, they are probably unlikely to have heard many temnospondyl names. But temnospondyls have some pretty cool names, if I say so myself! Below is a sampling of some of the more interesting ones:
Referring to anatomical features
Based on location
Terrifying!!
There are many other interesting names out there, many of which whose origins remain unknown (or speculated on but uncited on Wikipedia) or uncertain. For example, Kalamoiketor (Branson & Mehl, 1929) is a junior synonym of Koskinonodon, neither of which has the etymology listed in the literature. Other examples of interesting yet enigmatic names include Memonomenos (junior synonym of Archegosaurus) and Lusor (junior synonym of Sclerocephalus) (Steen, 1938). Some of these can probably be guessed at by someone with a good background in Latin and Greek (i.e. not me). For example, the internet widely states that Edops (Romer & Witter, 1942) means "glutton face," although no etymology or mention of gluttony is present in the original paper. The same is true of Cacops (Williston, 1910; "blind face"). I have not had much luck with Googling archaic roots so far (although the internet's translation of Platyhystrix did check out), but this may be a fun exercise for a linguistically-inclined person. If you dive deep enough, you may come to notice that many temnospondyls are named with -saurus (e.g., Metoposaurus, Aspidosaurus, Mastodonsaurus), -suchus (e.g., Batrachosuchus, Collidosuchus), which respectively mean 'lizard' and 'crocodile.' Way back in the 19th century, this reflected classical interpretations that these were reptiles because their size was far closer to a crocodile than to a frog. Even though we now know that temnospondyls are amphibians, these suffixes continue to be popular. -batrachus ("frog"), -herpeton ("creeping animal"), and -ops ("face) are other popular ones. Sorry I'm takenSometimes temnospondyls get some pretty cool names that they have to give up. Taxonomic protocols prevent the same genus name being used for different animals to avoid confusion. People don't intentionally name two different animals the same name, but it can be a bit difficult to know the full scope of every name of every animal that ever existed. Let's say you work on turtles. You probably don't know too much about the names of bush crickets. This is more or less how two different animals end up with the same name - unsurprisingly, this was particularly common before the internet. No matter how honest the mistake, they cannot both keep the shared name. When two distinct taxa (e.g., frog and fly) share a genus name, the one named first takes precedence, and the one named second (called a junior homonym) has to be renamed. The flip side is when two taxa with different genus names are found to be the same genus (the same frog). Same principle - first one keeps the name, and the second (junior synonym) is renamed. Here are some of the temnospondyls whose names had to be changed because they were homonyms:
TLDR: usually some invertebrate that has almost never been published on since the 19th century is the the true bearer of these names. Even with the internet, a lot of these were fairly hard to track down, which probably explains why it still happens sporadically today. Below is a gallery featuring these various temnospondyls and the true bearer of their name. Next week: purported functions and flavours of temnospondyl ornamentation, including pitting, grooves, "horns," tubercles, nodules, nodes, and pustules. Refs (long list this week)
Christian Kammerer
1/8/2019 12:48:27 pm
In ancient Greek, κάλαμος (kalamos) means "reed" and οἰκήτωρ (oiketor) means "inhabitant", thus Kalamoiketor means "inhabitant among the reeds" i.e. "swamp-dweller". κόσκινον (koskinon) is a "sieve" and of course ὀδούς (odous) is tooth, thus Koskinonodon is "sieve tooth" (presumably in reference to the labyrinthodont structure.) Memonomenos means "isolated" or "individual" and Lusor means a "gambler" or "player", but I am uncertain of Steen's intent there.
Bryan Gee
1/10/2019 12:49:10 pm
Ah perfect, thanks Christian! Now that you mention the etymology for Koskinonodon, it reminds me of something I read in Branson & Mehl (1929) where they postulated that metoposaurids were filtering the fine Popo Agie mud for food, so it may be that this hypothesis led to the sieving idea.
Aaron Kufner
1/8/2019 06:29:50 pm
I'm surprised you didn't bring up Buettneria being preoccupied by a bush cricket. I suppose you could do a whole blog (or paper) about the history of metoposaurid taxonomy though. It's a lot of fun to talk about etymology in outreach because I think the names bring out a bit of the humanity in science that otherwise wouldn't seem as evident to a layperson.
Andreas Johansson
1/10/2019 08:24:32 am
Gk <i>kakos</i> has a range of meanings, including "bad", "ugly", and "evil" (closely related concepts to the ancient Greek mind), but "blind" doesn't seem to be among them, so I don't know why WP says <i>Cacops</i> means "blind face".
Christian Kammerer
1/10/2019 09:35:07 am
I had never heard the "blind face" etymology before now and find it nonsensical given the enormous orbits of Cacops (which are well-preserved in the holotype and discussed by Williston in his original description). I always assumed it was "ugly face" and still believe this to be correct. Although Williston does not provide an explicit etymology in his description, he does state that Cacops "presents an almost absurd appearance" and that it "must be classed among the oddities of vertebrate paleontology." (For what it's worth, I think Cacops is actually quite cute, but I can see why Williston might have disagreed.)
David Marjanović
1/10/2019 10:45:54 am
Latin caecus means "blind". Many popular sources on dinosaur names act as if it doesn't matter if a letter here or there is unaccounted for; apparently that extends to temnospondyls with rather large eye sockets.
David Marjanović
1/10/2019 10:43:07 am
"cochlear (Latin for "spoon)"
David Marjanović
1/10/2019 10:49:16 am
I should mention that the dictionary form of a Latin verb is not the present infinitive, but the first person singular indicative present. Video means "I see/I'm seeing", audio means "I hear/I'm hearing"...
Bryan Gee
1/10/2019 12:54:09 pm
Hi David! Thanks for the corrections. The meaning of 'rubeo' came straight from the original description - I didn't translate it myself - but good to know!
David Marjanović
1/17/2019 11:51:12 am
Frankly, don't trust original descriptions that are less than 50 years old. I've seen so many that confidently declare a Latin word to be Greek or vice versa, and/or get confused by the grammar... Comments are closed.
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