certain investment of time and paperwork, but the plenary powers rule has served us well and has finally achieved stability by locating the fulcrum between strict priority and proper exception. To suppress an earlier name under the plenary powers, a taxonomist must submit a formal application and justification to the International Commission (a body of some thirty professional zoologists). The commission then publishes the case, invites commentary from taxonomists throughout the world, considers the initial appeal with all elicited support and rebuttal, and makes a decision by majority vote.
The system has worked well, as two cases may illustrate. The protozoan species Tetrahymena pyriforme has long been a staple for biological research, particularly on the physiology of single-celled organisms. John Corliss counted more than 1,500 papers published over a 27-year span—all using this name. However, at least ten technically valid names, entirely forgotten and unused, predate the first publication of Tetrahymena . No purpose would be served by resurrecting any of these earlier designations and suppressing the universally accepted Tetrahymena . Corliss’s petition to the commission was accepted without protest, and Tetrahymena has been officially accepted under the plenary powers.
One of my favorite names recently had a much closer brush with official extinction. The generic names of many animals are the same as their common designation: the gorilla is Gorilla; the rat, Rattus . But I know only one case of a vernacular name identical with both generic and specific parts of the technical Latin. The boa constrictor is (but almost wasn’t) Boa constrictor , and it would be a damned shame if we lost this lovely consonance. Nevertheless, in 1976, Boa constrictor barely survived one of the closest contests ever brought before the commission, as thirteen members voted to suppress this grand name in favor of Boa canina , while fifteen noble nays stood firm and saved the day. The details are numerous and not relevant to this essay. Briefly, in the founding document of 1758, Linnaeus placed nine species in his genus Boa , including canina and constrictor . As later zoologists divided Linnaeus’s overly broad concept of Boa into several genera, a key question inevitably arose: Which of Linnaeus’s original species should become the “type” (or name bearer) for the restricted version of Boa , and which should be assigned to other genera? Many professional herpetologists had accepted canina as the best name bearer (and assigned constrictor to another genus); but a world of both technical and common usage, from textbooks to zoo labels to horror films, recognized Boa constrictor . The commission narrowly opted, in a tight squeeze (sorry, I couldn’t resist that one), for the name we all know and love. Ernst Mayr, in casting his decisive vote, cited the virtue of stability in validating common usage—the basis for the plenary powers decision in the first place:
I think here is clearly a case where stability is best served by following usage in the general zoological literature. I have asked numerous zoologists “what species does the genus Boa call to your mind?” and they all said immediately “ constrictor .”…Making constrictor the type of Boa will remove all ambiguity from the literature.
These debates often strike nonprofessionals as a bit ridiculous—a sign, perhaps, that taxonomy is more wordplay than science. After all, science studies the external world (through the dark glass of our prejudices and perceptions to be sure). Questions of first publication versus common usage raise no issues about the animals “out there,” and only concern human conventions for naming. But this is the point, not the problem. These are debates about names, not things—and the arbitrary criteria of human decision-making, not boundaries imposed by the external world, apply to our resolutions. The aim of these debates (although not
The system has worked well, as two cases may illustrate. The protozoan species Tetrahymena pyriforme has long been a staple for biological research, particularly on the physiology of single-celled organisms. John Corliss counted more than 1,500 papers published over a 27-year span—all using this name. However, at least ten technically valid names, entirely forgotten and unused, predate the first publication of Tetrahymena . No purpose would be served by resurrecting any of these earlier designations and suppressing the universally accepted Tetrahymena . Corliss’s petition to the commission was accepted without protest, and Tetrahymena has been officially accepted under the plenary powers.
One of my favorite names recently had a much closer brush with official extinction. The generic names of many animals are the same as their common designation: the gorilla is Gorilla; the rat, Rattus . But I know only one case of a vernacular name identical with both generic and specific parts of the technical Latin. The boa constrictor is (but almost wasn’t) Boa constrictor , and it would be a damned shame if we lost this lovely consonance. Nevertheless, in 1976, Boa constrictor barely survived one of the closest contests ever brought before the commission, as thirteen members voted to suppress this grand name in favor of Boa canina , while fifteen noble nays stood firm and saved the day. The details are numerous and not relevant to this essay. Briefly, in the founding document of 1758, Linnaeus placed nine species in his genus Boa , including canina and constrictor . As later zoologists divided Linnaeus’s overly broad concept of Boa into several genera, a key question inevitably arose: Which of Linnaeus’s original species should become the “type” (or name bearer) for the restricted version of Boa , and which should be assigned to other genera? Many professional herpetologists had accepted canina as the best name bearer (and assigned constrictor to another genus); but a world of both technical and common usage, from textbooks to zoo labels to horror films, recognized Boa constrictor . The commission narrowly opted, in a tight squeeze (sorry, I couldn’t resist that one), for the name we all know and love. Ernst Mayr, in casting his decisive vote, cited the virtue of stability in validating common usage—the basis for the plenary powers decision in the first place:
I think here is clearly a case where stability is best served by following usage in the general zoological literature. I have asked numerous zoologists “what species does the genus Boa call to your mind?” and they all said immediately “ constrictor .”…Making constrictor the type of Boa will remove all ambiguity from the literature.
These debates often strike nonprofessionals as a bit ridiculous—a sign, perhaps, that taxonomy is more wordplay than science. After all, science studies the external world (through the dark glass of our prejudices and perceptions to be sure). Questions of first publication versus common usage raise no issues about the animals “out there,” and only concern human conventions for naming. But this is the point, not the problem. These are debates about names, not things—and the arbitrary criteria of human decision-making, not boundaries imposed by the external world, apply to our resolutions. The aim of these debates (although not
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