From Hitler’s beetle to the Bobbitt worm, nature’s offensive names face the chop

While statues fall around the world, scientists consider toppling species named after the now politically unacceptable.

A Bobbitt worm, a predator which snaps fish in two with a ferociously sharp mouth. It is named after Lorena Bobbitt, who cut off her husband’s penis with a knife in 1993 after years of allegedly being raped and beaten by him. Picture: Supplied

Of all the acts in John Porter McCown’s eventful life, the occasion in 1851 when he shot at passing birds must have seemed the most politically innocuous.

Yet after 169 years in which the small brown bird he hit had been named after him, it is this day that has brought McCown back into global politics.

Because that bird – until this month the McCown’s longspur – has been renamed so that it is no longer tarnished by the racist associations of the Confederate major general who discovered it.

While statues are toppling around the world, in zoology, botany and ornithology, scientists are debating whether it is time to topple less tangible monuments: the species named, often in the New World, after men whose politics is today considered unacceptable.

Robert Driver, of East Carolina University, proposed renaming the McCown’s longspur two years ago.

“There was another bout of civil unrest [about] race relations, which turned into a discussion about Confederate monuments,” he said. That was when he looked into McCown. “Not only did he fight [for] the Confederacy but he also rose in rank substantially. So it was at that point that I thought maybe something needs to happen.”

McCown is, he says, the “only individual who had a bird named in his honour [who] served in the Confederate army during the Civil War”.

The first time, his proposal was rejected by the American Ornithological Society. The second time, in a different political environment, they accepted it. Last month, the name formally changed.

A McCown’s longspur, named after John Porter McCown, a Confederate general during the US Civil War. Source: Smithsonian Magazine

McCown may, however, just be the start. Separately, biologists have been looking through their taxonomies and finding, from the Hottentot teal to the Jew’s Ear fungus to Hitler’s eyeless beetle, that perhaps their species lists need updating. Online, they have circulated a spreadsheet entitled Problematic Common Names.

It identifies, for instance, the gypsy moth as having been named because it has the colouration “of a gypsy”.

Townsend’s warbler is named after John Townsend, the ornithologist, who also collected humans after desecrating Native American graves.

While many, such as the slavemaker ant and Oriental lady’s thumb, represent older prejudices, some have contemporary resonances.

One entry singles out the more recently named Bobbitt worm. This predator lies in wait for fish then snaps them in two with a ferociously-sharp mouth. It is named after Lorena Bobbitt, who cut off her husband’s penis with a knife, an association the spreadsheet creators deem “regrettable”.

Steve Dudley, from the British Ornithologists’ Union, said that the debate is less of an issue in the UK. Partly this is because most British birds were named long before the practice of naming them after people began. Partly it is because, he said, “our eponymously named birds are less contentious”.

Mr Driver, who is studying for a PhD, realised that some will question the point of going to such lengths. “Does it matter that a bird was named after a Confederate general?” he said.

“I think it does. We’re saying these names constantly. It’s the only way to refer to that species. It does matter if it’s named after someone who has egregious behaviour by current standards.” More generally, though, he felt that the time has passed for birds to be named after humans.

What was once the McCown’s longspur, and is now the thick-billed longspur, is what bird watchers refer to as an LBB – a “little brown bird”. Except to the enthusiast it looks like most other LBBs. In this context, said Mr Driver, “naming it after McCown isn’t useful”. What is useful, as the name suggests, is to know that it has a thicker bill.

The Times