A FEW years ago, I visited Slovenia to do a story on the olm, a type of salamander that lives exclusively in caves in the western Balkans. As a result (and as is my wont) I got a bit obsessed with troglobites, creatures that spend their entire lives in underground caves. That led to my first encounter with a notorious beetle called Anophthalmus hitleri, discovered in the same cave system in 1933 by a Nazi entomologist who named it after鈥� you know who.
The beetle , having become a prized item among collectors of Nazi memorabilia. It looks destined to follow the extinct insect Roechlingia hitleri into the dustbin of biodiversity.
A. hitleri has since become embroiled in a wider debate about organisms named after disreputable characters past and present. In 2022, botanists Gideon Smith and Estrela Figueiredo published an in Taxon arguing that 126 plant names commemorating colonialist Cecil Rhodes are 鈥減erceived by many as offensive and unacceptable鈥�. Taking their cue from the Rhodes Must Fall movement, which started in South Africa and spread to the US and UK, they proposed that species names were like statues and should be toppled.
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This isn鈥檛 just about cleansing the tree of life, but also undoing colonialism鈥檚 continued stifling effect on African botany. Many former colonies didn鈥檛 have research collections until the 20th century, and most remain understaffed and reliant on foreign expertise.
The call was taken up by other taxonomists. Similar proposals have been made for North American freshwater and extinct . Earlier this year, a team of biologists in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution that all colonial-era names across the tree of life should be abolished, along with the entire practice of naming species after individuals.
These 鈥渆ponyms鈥�, they say, often honour the legacy of people who are undeserving, perpetuate the idea that science is a Western preserve and risk progress in conservation biology. Taxonomy is the backbone of biodiversity research, which many Indigenous people already regard as 鈥渨hite saviours鈥� bossing them around and depriving them of their ways of life. Constant reminders of the colonial past aren鈥檛 helpful in that respect, say the researchers.
In the colonial era, African and Asian biodiversity was plundered and specimens were shipped to European institutions. Many species were named in honour of colonial masters, Western academics and nobility, who were overwhelmingly white, male, upper class, racist and sometimes slave owners. Indigenous people who had known of these species for generations and had their own names for them were sidelined. Around of all African vertebrate names are eponyms, generally from colonial powers.
The practice continues. In 2018, a Panamanian amphibian was Dermophis donaldtrumpi to draw attention to the then US president鈥檚 disdain for environmental policies. In 2017, a Californian moth had been named Neopalpa donaldtrumpi for similar reasons. The names will live long in the record. The ironic motivation for them may not.
The proposals to purge eponyms from taxonomy haven鈥檛 won universal acclaim. In a to the Taxon paper, Sergei Mosyakin at the M. G. Kholodny Institute of Botany in Kyiv, Ukraine, argued that 鈥渟cience cannot and should not鈥� employ politically motivated censorship and totalitarian cleansing of scientific history鈥�. Others that wholesale renaming would be time-consuming, expensive and disruptive.
These arguments are valid, but not insurmountable. A mass renaming won鈥檛 erase the originals from history: conservation biologists are already familiar with names since superseded for other reasons (who can forget Brontosaurus?).
The (ICZN) already says that names shouldn鈥檛 be objectionable, comical or potentially offensive. These rules could be amended to apply retrospectively, though the ICZN . Naming rights for new species are already routinely auctioned off to the highest bidder, so why not hold a mass auction for obsolete eponyms?
The authors of the Nature Ecology & Evolution piece give another reason for renaming. The task could be given to taxonomists in the countries of origin 鈥� a boon to biodiversity conservation in the places that need it most.
I would like to proffer a further reason. It may be too late for A. hitleri, but the species named after Trump still need protection. Future collectors of Trumpian memorabilia may push both towards extinction. Some eponyms do more harm than good. Time for a purge.
Graham鈥檚 week
What I鈥檓 reading
Testicular cancer memoir by Richard Herring.
What I鈥檓 watching
on Netflix, a dramatisation of the US opioid epidemic.
What I鈥檓 working on
Getting over the finish line before my holidays.
