Professor Stephen Heard

Charles Darwin’s Barnacle and David Bowie’s Spider: How Scientific Names Celebrate Adventurers, Heroes, and Even a Few Scoundrels 

Professor Stephen Heard | University of New Brunswick | 24 April 2020 

We were delighted to be joined from Canada by Dr Stephen J. Heard, to talk about his new book on species that are named after people. Such “eponymous” naming has a long and curious history, from Linnaeus naming a small and unpleasant weed to insult a rival botanist to the recent spate of scientific names based on pop-culture icons—such as David Bowie’s spider, Frank Zappa’s jellyfish, and Beyoncé’s horsefly. Stephen’s book explores the naming process as a way that scientists express themselves creatively, and it shows how scientific names open a window onto the passions and foibles of the scientific community. Scientists have named species for their heroes, for their wives and husbands and (sometimes) their not-so-secret lovers. They’ve even, occasionally, named species for themselves – at least once, doing so by accident. There are wonderful stories wrapped up in eponymous names. Seminar introduced and chaired by Rainer Melzer, UCD School ofBiology and Environmental Science.

Charles Darwin's Barnacle and David Bowie's Spider from Stephen Heard on Vimeo.