Francesco: Did you even tried to understand my point of view? Of course it has something to do with German people, but German language-based scientific species names is not the only case. There is certainly others too. And of course taxonomist who want to name species by name after "first describer (there is no such a thing than first describer, only first founder of the species. Species can be described only once and revisions and such are totally different cases) can and is allowed to do so of course, but whether he/she should do so or not, was exactly my point and it is totally different case.
Idea of structure of Linnean binomial scientific names was originally meant to based on language from Latin and Greek language. Now there is plenty of examples where names based on other language but just a converted and formulated in classic Latin form (yes, it is allowed but not recommended). Why the present situation is like that? Because some biologist and taxonomist are so full themselves that they want, when describing new species or subspecies, to name them after by their own or best pals or girl-/boyfriends name. Otherwise than Francesco, it is very difficult to digest by me that some biologist are so egoistic and greedy, fishing glory and fame from such a kind of way (I don't mean this particular case) and try to left their hand marks to the pages in history of science of biology in a pitiful way, like those who uses own name when naming some new species.
Not all taxonomist prefer this kind of policy, but there is lot of biologist who just want their own name into the species name. In this particular case of revision of
Salamandra salamandra subspecies, the name is obviously given after some other herpetologist than describer self. I am not aware of details of this case, but sometimes species describer wants to praise and honour some other scientist by giving species name after that scientist. In my opinion, this kind of situation is, indeed, the only case where I see even some sense of using peoples names as a base of scientific species or subspecies name. But naming species after own name is something really pitiable, I think...
One might ask: why biologist can't use his/her own name when naming species if this one is describer of the species? The answer would be this kind of reversed question: of course he/she can do so but why the h*ll he/she should? There is plenty of other allowed and more preferred ways to name the species or subspecies than using difficult people names, not to mention the own name of describer...
EDIT: I agree with Coen Deurloo that unfortunatelly the scientific names aren't what they used to be... This whole thing was preliminarily invented firstly facilitate classification of species by their relationship status between oneselves, secondly make their international use easier, not more difficult. I am living in horror and waiting the time when someone named "Schmeisweighbkneichxandern" discovers a new species of
Plethodon species for instance, and without any question want to name it after own name.
Plethodon schmeisweighhbkneichxandernis or something like that...
(Message edited by Aki_Suzuki on February 26, 2006)
