Re: Tsaagan mangas - new dromaeosaurid from Mongolia

[Andreas Johansson <andreasj@gmail.com>]

On 12/12/06, Jamie Stearns <stearns5@cox.net> wrote:
> My point wasn't the "mangas" part at all, and perhaps "goofy" wasn't the
> proper word.
>
> When the whole scientific naming concept got started, as I recall, Latin and
> Greek were used for naming because they were dead languages and would not
> change over time. This would be good for ensuring stability in nomenclature.
>
> With that said, Mongolian and Chinese are definitely not dead languages, and
> thus would not be particularly suited for naming taxa, except where place
> names are concerned. Though, I suppose this would also be a strike against
> "Supersaurus" as a name...

Super- is a Latin prefix meanig "above", "over", "more than" - while
the compound is odd, I think the ancients would've got more-or-less
the intended meaning from it.

Now, surely they original adoption of Latin for taxonomy was simply
due to the fact it was still the language of science in Linnaeus's
day.

--
Andreas Johansson

Why can't you be a non-conformist just like everybody else?