WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.760 --> 00:00:03.680 You're listening to an airwave media podcast. 2 00:00:04.679 --> 00:00:08.439 Out of the Ground. The Lord God formed every beast 3 00:00:08.480 --> 00:00:12.000 of the field and every bird at the sky, and 4 00:00:12.119 --> 00:00:14.320 brought them to the man to see what he would 5 00:00:14.359 --> 00:00:17.440 call them. And whatever the man called a living creature, 6 00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:25.719 that was its name Genesis two nineteen. Well, that passage 7 00:00:25.800 --> 00:00:30.120 doesn't seem to cover fishes, but hey, I've got just 8 00:00:30.239 --> 00:00:36.119 the guy. It's actually quite unlike anything we've ever seen before. 9 00:00:38.280 --> 00:00:41.799 A giant, hairy creature part epe part masts. 10 00:00:42.920 --> 00:00:46.000 In Luckness, a twenty four mile long bottomless lake in 11 00:00:46.000 --> 00:00:47.119 the Highlands of Scotland. 12 00:00:47.439 --> 00:00:49.880 It's a creature known as the Luckness Monster. 13 00:01:11.879 --> 00:01:12.359 Mornster. 14 00:01:14.280 --> 00:01:17.200 Welcome to Monster Talk, the science show about monsters. I'm 15 00:01:17.239 --> 00:01:20.439 Blake Smith and I'm Karen Stolsner. This is an episode 16 00:01:20.439 --> 00:01:23.359 about science and cryptozoology. If you like monsters and you 17 00:01:23.439 --> 00:01:26.120 like science, this episode should be fun. Today we're talking 18 00:01:26.159 --> 00:01:29.680 with biologists Benjamin Frabele. Ben is an ichthyologist who works 19 00:01:29.719 --> 00:01:33.120 as a collection manager of the Marine Vertebrate Collection at 20 00:01:33.159 --> 00:01:37.319 Script's Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego. He's also 21 00:01:37.439 --> 00:01:40.480 a listener to this show and an enthusiast of cryptozoology, 22 00:01:40.640 --> 00:01:44.159 but foremost a dedicated scientists. Today, he's going to explain 23 00:01:44.239 --> 00:01:47.680 how life forms are actually named scientifically and how species 24 00:01:47.680 --> 00:01:49.799 are identified and then the process of that. We'll be 25 00:01:49.799 --> 00:01:53.879 talking about monsters, science, dinosaurs and silly names. 26 00:01:54.200 --> 00:01:58.200 Mornster Ben, how did you get into this field? 27 00:01:59.760 --> 00:02:03.400 Well, I have had a fascination with kind of the 28 00:02:03.439 --> 00:02:07.319 biodiversity of life, for the diversity of forms, since a 29 00:02:07.359 --> 00:02:09.280 fairly early age when I was when I was young, 30 00:02:09.319 --> 00:02:12.240 my my father collected fossils, and so we kind of 31 00:02:12.240 --> 00:02:14.919 had fossils all over the house, and you know, as 32 00:02:15.000 --> 00:02:17.599 every young child does. At some point I went through 33 00:02:17.599 --> 00:02:21.240 the dinosaur phase. And then at some point early on 34 00:02:21.360 --> 00:02:25.080 I got a book about seashore life and was just 35 00:02:26.639 --> 00:02:30.080 enamored with the diversity of seashore life, and over time 36 00:02:30.080 --> 00:02:35.360 it turned into fish. I will say that at least 37 00:02:35.360 --> 00:02:37.919 at some point Pokemon had a little bit of an 38 00:02:37.919 --> 00:02:44.080 influence at least later later on in my in my life. 39 00:02:44.240 --> 00:02:45.960 But then, uh yeah, I just and then when I 40 00:02:46.000 --> 00:02:51.280 got to university, I really wanted to pursue studying fish. 41 00:02:51.319 --> 00:02:54.000 It was fish was what I decided was an interesting 42 00:02:54.039 --> 00:02:55.759 group of animals and what I wanted to work on. 43 00:02:56.719 --> 00:02:59.639 And so once I was at university. I tried to 44 00:02:59.759 --> 00:03:01.879 find and if there was a collection there because it's 45 00:03:02.199 --> 00:03:05.199 kind of the best place to have interactions with the 46 00:03:05.199 --> 00:03:08.479 diversity of different types of fish on a daily basis. 47 00:03:09.400 --> 00:03:13.199 And yes, I just started there, and I've been working 48 00:03:13.240 --> 00:03:16.960 in museum collections pretty much ever since for about over 49 00:03:17.000 --> 00:03:17.680 ten years now. 50 00:03:18.319 --> 00:03:22.360 So there's there's several kinds of fish. 51 00:03:22.400 --> 00:03:25.240 So this is something that comes up a lot. And 52 00:03:25.479 --> 00:03:27.840 there's actually one of the curators at the Smithsonian this 53 00:03:27.879 --> 00:03:31.560 is something he will always yell about. Is there's fish 54 00:03:31.680 --> 00:03:35.400 versus fishes. So when you're using fish that way plural, 55 00:03:35.479 --> 00:03:39.280 it's actually just referring to everything of the group of 56 00:03:39.319 --> 00:03:43.000 fish of the same species. And when you say fish 57 00:03:43.080 --> 00:03:45.840 is it's referring to fish, multiple species of fish. So 58 00:03:45.919 --> 00:03:48.479 I actually had a little faux pod there earlier. 59 00:03:48.479 --> 00:03:51.520 I should have said fishes when I said fish. We didn't. 60 00:03:51.560 --> 00:03:52.280 We didn't notice. 61 00:03:52.840 --> 00:03:56.039 So let me see if I understand that correctly. If 62 00:03:56.360 --> 00:04:01.319 there's lots of goldfish, that's fish. But if there's goldfish 63 00:04:01.560 --> 00:04:06.759 and catfish, that's fishes. Yes, okay, I see that's interesting. 64 00:04:07.080 --> 00:04:11.520 And if I'm fishing, but if I'm fishing there's no fish, 65 00:04:11.599 --> 00:04:15.759 there's that's been my experience. 66 00:04:17.000 --> 00:04:19.920 Yeah, Sam, all right, interesting. 67 00:04:20.160 --> 00:04:22.399 That is interesting. I suspect we're going to get into 68 00:04:22.399 --> 00:04:24.759 a lot of interesting things here. The reason we're having 69 00:04:24.759 --> 00:04:26.560 you on is actually because you reached out to us, 70 00:04:26.800 --> 00:04:29.800 which is great as a listener and a scientist working 71 00:04:29.839 --> 00:04:34.079 scientist about this topic which I've always found interesting, but 72 00:04:34.160 --> 00:04:36.759 I didn't really I never really thought about doing an 73 00:04:36.759 --> 00:04:38.240 episode about it. But I think this will be fun. 74 00:04:38.319 --> 00:04:42.000 We're actually going to talk about how animals are named. 75 00:04:42.240 --> 00:04:45.839 I'll probably call the episode something like Naming Monsters, but 76 00:04:46.759 --> 00:04:50.879 we'll probably talk about more common animals first. But I 77 00:04:50.879 --> 00:04:53.240 wanted to get to like, let's assume for a moment 78 00:04:53.240 --> 00:04:57.319 that our listeners represent a wide spectrum of expertise. So 79 00:04:57.360 --> 00:04:59.560 I imagine there's some people who have no idea how 80 00:04:59.560 --> 00:05:03.079 this works or even how animals are named at all, 81 00:05:03.120 --> 00:05:05.920 and people who are actually working in the field. We're 82 00:05:05.959 --> 00:05:08.439 all over the place. But because I know a lot 83 00:05:08.480 --> 00:05:11.240 of our listeners are young people who are interested in science, 84 00:05:11.480 --> 00:05:13.560 can you talk a little bit about the normal process, 85 00:05:13.639 --> 00:05:16.639 kind of at a high level, for how one goes 86 00:05:16.680 --> 00:05:18.879 about identifying and naming species. 87 00:05:19.000 --> 00:05:21.000 So when people discuss it, they kind of break it 88 00:05:21.079 --> 00:05:24.240 down into a bunch of different parts. The initial part 89 00:05:24.279 --> 00:05:27.160 is the discovery of the new species, which can come 90 00:05:27.800 --> 00:05:31.079 in a lot of different and interesting ways. For me, 91 00:05:31.839 --> 00:05:33.920 and I think a lot of ichthyologists or people that 92 00:05:34.319 --> 00:05:39.439 study fishes like myself, it's not as glamorous as one 93 00:05:39.519 --> 00:05:42.920 might think. You're sitting in a museum, you're comparing some 94 00:05:42.959 --> 00:05:45.759 dead fish that somebody collected in the seventies together. You know, 95 00:05:45.759 --> 00:05:48.680 notice one of them looks a little different, and you 96 00:05:48.720 --> 00:05:50.800 know it's from a slightly different part of the world 97 00:05:51.160 --> 00:05:53.839 or maybe slightly different habitat, and you go from there. 98 00:05:54.800 --> 00:05:58.720 That's one way of discovery, and that's honestly how a 99 00:05:58.759 --> 00:06:01.519 good number of them in terms of fish, and and 100 00:06:02.000 --> 00:06:05.000 throughout this interview, I'm actually gonna kind of mostly focus 101 00:06:05.040 --> 00:06:07.480 on fishes because that's what I know best. I know 102 00:06:07.519 --> 00:06:11.240 in other fields of zoology and in botany, the species 103 00:06:11.319 --> 00:06:13.120 description process can vary a little bit. 104 00:06:13.199 --> 00:06:13.959 Especially in botany. 105 00:06:14.000 --> 00:06:18.920 It's it's it's somewhat similar, but there it's very confusing 106 00:06:18.959 --> 00:06:22.240 as to what a species even is in plants, so 107 00:06:22.279 --> 00:06:26.360 I'm gonna refer refer mostly to to fish and vertebrate life. 108 00:06:27.639 --> 00:06:30.240 But anyways, so you know, you could find it in 109 00:06:30.279 --> 00:06:32.759 a museum. You could be fortunate enough to find it 110 00:06:32.800 --> 00:06:36.079 out in the field. You could you could have a 111 00:06:36.079 --> 00:06:38.800 fisherman may have caught one. But it's very difficult to 112 00:06:38.800 --> 00:06:42.959 describe a species off of one specimen, and so you 113 00:06:43.079 --> 00:06:46.040 go out on a purpose, purposeful expedition and try to 114 00:06:46.040 --> 00:06:46.959 collect more. 115 00:06:48.240 --> 00:06:49.639 And you can get lucky and do that. 116 00:06:50.120 --> 00:06:54.040 Interrupting me, why would it be difficult with one specimen? 117 00:06:54.399 --> 00:06:56.480 Is it because of like sexual dimorphism or that sort 118 00:06:56.480 --> 00:06:56.680 of thing. 119 00:06:56.879 --> 00:06:59.439 Yeah, that that type of thing you you want in 120 00:06:59.480 --> 00:07:01.839 a species description. It's you know, it's not a hard 121 00:07:01.879 --> 00:07:05.199 and fast rule that you have to have more than 122 00:07:05.240 --> 00:07:12.079 one specimen available, but it is definitely preferred because you 123 00:07:12.879 --> 00:07:16.040 can show that, oh, you didn't just find this one 124 00:07:16.480 --> 00:07:22.319 deformed or diseased individual of a commonly known species that 125 00:07:22.399 --> 00:07:25.720 you may just with one. You can also it's really 126 00:07:25.720 --> 00:07:28.720 good to present kind of the wide range of characters 127 00:07:29.480 --> 00:07:32.199 from a good number of specimens of the new species, 128 00:07:32.240 --> 00:07:36.480 so you can give, like, you know, something along twenty 129 00:07:36.480 --> 00:07:39.279 three to twenty five dorsal fin spines instead of just 130 00:07:39.319 --> 00:07:41.759 saying twenty three dorsal fin spines on this one specimen 131 00:07:41.800 --> 00:07:45.399 that I looked at and I guess that comes to 132 00:07:45.480 --> 00:07:47.639 another point, which we can talk about a little bit later, 133 00:07:47.680 --> 00:07:48.560 because this could take. 134 00:07:48.560 --> 00:07:49.360 A little tangent. 135 00:07:49.639 --> 00:07:53.319 Recently, actually just within the last year, there's been some 136 00:07:53.319 --> 00:07:55.800 some back and forth in science and nature, some of 137 00:07:55.839 --> 00:08:00.439 these you know, higher broader audience to research journals talking 138 00:08:00.519 --> 00:08:06.560 about describing species from photographs. This is kind of put 139 00:08:06.600 --> 00:08:09.439 forward by I think some ornithologists, people who study birds 140 00:08:09.680 --> 00:08:13.319 that don't want to kill these very rare and endangered 141 00:08:13.319 --> 00:08:17.120 birds to have specimens in a museum, and so they 142 00:08:17.199 --> 00:08:19.759 would like to try to describe I think they're actually 143 00:08:19.759 --> 00:08:22.560 more just in a subspecies, which is below the species 144 00:08:22.680 --> 00:08:27.279 level description, more for like a population. But they proposed that, hey, 145 00:08:27.360 --> 00:08:31.040 let us use a very high quality image as the 146 00:08:31.160 --> 00:08:35.840 specimen quote unquote for this description, and as you could imagine, 147 00:08:35.879 --> 00:08:38.919 there's actually been quite a lot of backlash and people 148 00:08:39.039 --> 00:08:41.799 being like, no, this is a very bad idea. 149 00:08:43.480 --> 00:08:46.000 A blurry bigfoot photo would not really count though, right, 150 00:08:46.039 --> 00:08:48.159 I mean you're talking about extremely high resolution. 151 00:08:48.720 --> 00:08:51.039 Yeah. I think a lot of this actually had already 152 00:08:51.440 --> 00:08:55.399 shaken up in the literature back in like the late nineties, 153 00:08:57.279 --> 00:09:01.799 people were talking about describing species from picks, and I know, 154 00:09:01.919 --> 00:09:05.600 at least in the cryptozoology world. I think there are 155 00:09:05.639 --> 00:09:09.799 about I think three at least three cryptids that have 156 00:09:09.919 --> 00:09:14.519 had formal quote unquote formal species descriptions, all from images, 157 00:09:14.639 --> 00:09:18.279 not specimens. Surprisingly, and so there was actually a little 158 00:09:18.279 --> 00:09:21.600 bit of discussion of this in uh, the more mainstream 159 00:09:21.639 --> 00:09:24.320 scientific literature back when this when this happened, I guess 160 00:09:24.360 --> 00:09:27.279 it was all precipitated by the description of Caddy. 161 00:09:28.279 --> 00:09:32.279 Yeah, that's one of my that was one of my questions. Yeah, 162 00:09:32.360 --> 00:09:33.559 I don't want to say, I don't want to take 163 00:09:33.600 --> 00:09:35.279 us off of the tangent yet, so we will actually 164 00:09:35.320 --> 00:09:35.919 come back to that. 165 00:09:36.440 --> 00:09:41.679 Yeah, yeah, How often are new species found of new pisches? 166 00:09:42.559 --> 00:09:46.960 So, at least in the fish world, it's it's fairly frequent. 167 00:09:47.799 --> 00:09:50.840 You know, Like I myself am working on at least 168 00:09:50.879 --> 00:09:52.639 one at the moment, I know of a bunch of 169 00:09:52.679 --> 00:09:55.639 other undescribed species that are just kind of floating around. 170 00:09:57.159 --> 00:09:57.960 And so there's a. 171 00:09:59.440 --> 00:10:02.039 Database kind of that's that some researchers of the California 172 00:10:02.080 --> 00:10:06.000 Academy of Science put together called Catalog of Fishes, and 173 00:10:06.080 --> 00:10:08.399 they have done a really good job of keeping track 174 00:10:08.480 --> 00:10:12.120 of new species descriptions, changing of names, and all these 175 00:10:12.159 --> 00:10:15.600 taxonomic things that happen with fish, and I think it's 176 00:10:16.080 --> 00:10:19.200 roughly about four hundred new species of fish are described 177 00:10:19.240 --> 00:10:22.519 every year. Wow, So it's pretty it's actually pretty high. 178 00:10:22.519 --> 00:10:24.039 It's more than one a day, I guess, if you're 179 00:10:24.039 --> 00:10:24.919 going to break it down. 180 00:10:24.720 --> 00:10:27.200 That way, yeah, yeah, but. 181 00:10:27.159 --> 00:10:29.159 It can fluctuate, you know, there's some years where only 182 00:10:29.360 --> 00:10:32.759 three hundred get described or two hundred, but it's still 183 00:10:33.120 --> 00:10:34.559 And this is something I think a lot of people 184 00:10:34.600 --> 00:10:37.440 don't realize. And something I when I, you know, was 185 00:10:37.440 --> 00:10:40.919 first getting started in ichthyology as a as an undergraduate, 186 00:10:40.960 --> 00:10:42.000 didn't realize is. 187 00:10:42.360 --> 00:10:45.159 How much we actually don't. 188 00:10:44.799 --> 00:10:48.480 Have the diversity of life sorted out in biology class. 189 00:10:48.600 --> 00:10:51.960 You kind of just get this preconception that, oh, we 190 00:10:52.000 --> 00:10:55.440 already know what all the species are. Like it's some 191 00:10:55.480 --> 00:10:57.600 guys to carry that back in the eighteen hundreds. People 192 00:10:57.600 --> 00:11:02.200 don't realize that it's still very much active, especially in 193 00:11:03.440 --> 00:11:06.039 less populated parts of the world. So, you know, I 194 00:11:06.039 --> 00:11:13.320 think probably the three richest areas of effort in fish biology, 195 00:11:13.480 --> 00:11:18.480 at least fish taxonomy or South America freshwater systems, which 196 00:11:18.519 --> 00:11:20.039 is what I did a lot of my graduate work 197 00:11:20.120 --> 00:11:24.080 in and there it's you can't sneeze in a neotropical 198 00:11:24.120 --> 00:11:30.159 collection without uncovering a new species. And then Africa, African 199 00:11:30.200 --> 00:11:33.360 freshwaters and Southeast Asian freshwaters are all kind of the 200 00:11:33.399 --> 00:11:36.639 big where a lot of species are coming out of. 201 00:11:37.159 --> 00:11:41.159 Neat So basically the looking well, although I hear people 202 00:11:41.200 --> 00:11:43.399 talking about like if you go to these places where 203 00:11:43.399 --> 00:11:45.720 people haven't looked, they find these species, but I also 204 00:11:45.799 --> 00:11:48.159 hear people finding new species of smaller life forms in 205 00:11:48.200 --> 00:11:49.240 their own yards even. 206 00:11:49.879 --> 00:11:53.639 Yeah, So that's you know, going back to just kind 207 00:11:53.679 --> 00:11:57.440 of the original process, I mean, the discovery of it. 208 00:11:57.600 --> 00:11:57.799 You know. 209 00:11:57.879 --> 00:12:00.240 That's another way is people find it by acts it 210 00:12:01.279 --> 00:12:03.120 when they're looking for something else. So you have all 211 00:12:03.120 --> 00:12:07.360 these fun stories of somebody who's like an ornithologist and they're, 212 00:12:07.759 --> 00:12:10.879 you know, doing a dissection on this seagull and they 213 00:12:10.879 --> 00:12:13.360 find this weird little parasite and it turns out to 214 00:12:13.360 --> 00:12:15.120 be like a new genus or something like that of 215 00:12:15.639 --> 00:12:20.440 parasitic amphipod or tapeworm or whatever. Or people who are 216 00:12:20.480 --> 00:12:23.120 focusing on a group of organisms that just haven't been 217 00:12:23.240 --> 00:12:26.200 very well studied. Again, a lot of those tend to 218 00:12:26.240 --> 00:12:30.320 be very small. The bigger an animal is more well studied, 219 00:12:30.360 --> 00:12:31.200 it tends to be. 220 00:12:31.679 --> 00:12:34.279 They're easier to study because they're big, I don't know, 221 00:12:34.639 --> 00:12:35.440 as opposed to. 222 00:12:35.879 --> 00:12:38.320 There's a point where it gets a little difficult, like 223 00:12:38.360 --> 00:12:42.240 with whales or your arts. We actually know very very 224 00:12:42.279 --> 00:12:45.120 little about their biology just because it is hard to 225 00:12:45.720 --> 00:12:47.360 track them down and see what they're up to. You 226 00:12:47.360 --> 00:12:49.960 can't put them in the aquarium, you know, easily. 227 00:12:50.720 --> 00:12:52.320 No, No, it's tricky. Yeah. 228 00:12:52.360 --> 00:12:55.200 So finding so many new species all the time, does 229 00:12:55.240 --> 00:12:58.600 this make it more or less likely that aquatic cryptids 230 00:12:58.679 --> 00:12:59.320 might exist? 231 00:12:59.480 --> 00:13:02.320 Or yeah? 232 00:13:02.360 --> 00:13:05.519 So, I mean, so that aspect of it, as I 233 00:13:05.639 --> 00:13:07.080 was just you know, as we were just talking about, 234 00:13:07.080 --> 00:13:10.279 like the size does kind of play into it. 235 00:13:10.759 --> 00:13:14.840 Big new big things are not discovered nearly as frequently. 236 00:13:15.919 --> 00:13:23.679 And and a lot of new species descriptions are especially 237 00:13:23.960 --> 00:13:27.159 in the last fifteen or so years with the rise 238 00:13:27.200 --> 00:13:31.720 of using genetics to kind of poke around in evolutionary history. 239 00:13:32.679 --> 00:13:35.600 A lot of new species are things that look very 240 00:13:35.639 --> 00:13:38.919 similar to other species and people just didn't really notice 241 00:13:38.960 --> 00:13:39.759 that they were different. 242 00:13:40.320 --> 00:13:40.639 Okay. 243 00:13:41.200 --> 00:13:45.440 And so is that like the. 244 00:13:45.559 --> 00:13:48.440 Convergent biology are you talking about, like two, No, it's 245 00:13:48.759 --> 00:13:51.240 very closely related, right, closely related? Okay, got it. 246 00:13:51.840 --> 00:13:55.080 And so that's actually like i'd say, the majority of 247 00:13:55.120 --> 00:13:58.279 species that I personally have described is that's been the 248 00:13:58.320 --> 00:14:01.879 case where the two fish. You know, if you're not 249 00:14:02.080 --> 00:14:05.080 necessarily an expert in the group, or you're just out collecting, 250 00:14:05.440 --> 00:14:07.480 you catch a bunch, you are like, oh, there's a 251 00:14:07.480 --> 00:14:09.879 little bit of variation in the color pattern of the species, 252 00:14:09.919 --> 00:14:11.919 but you put them in the same jar, set them 253 00:14:11.919 --> 00:14:14.639 over to the collection, and then like thirty years later, 254 00:14:14.679 --> 00:14:17.120 I come along and I'm like, oh, let's run some 255 00:14:17.159 --> 00:14:19.320 genetics on the one with the spots versus the one 256 00:14:19.360 --> 00:14:20.840 that doesn't have spots and see if. 257 00:14:20.720 --> 00:14:22.200 They're the same actually or not. 258 00:14:23.159 --> 00:14:24.919 And a lot of times they do turn out to 259 00:14:24.960 --> 00:14:29.879 be genetically distinct closely related species, But there are instances 260 00:14:29.879 --> 00:14:33.879 of convergence as well. It's usually the like convergence, as 261 00:14:33.919 --> 00:14:38.200 in two things that aren't all related looking similar, don't. 262 00:14:41.480 --> 00:14:45.480 The differences are less subtle than between closely related species. 263 00:14:45.639 --> 00:14:49.360 Oh sure, sure, I think here about the there's so 264 00:14:49.399 --> 00:14:53.039 many species that sort of mimic other species for defensive purposes. 265 00:14:53.120 --> 00:14:58.120 Oh yeah, I love that, and I love Fasmin's anyway. 266 00:14:58.440 --> 00:15:03.639 I so let's step back a minute about this process. 267 00:15:04.000 --> 00:15:06.279 So we've talked here about how you find you species, 268 00:15:07.279 --> 00:15:10.120 but that doesn't really just give you the right to 269 00:15:10.720 --> 00:15:12.559 name it. First of all, you've got to prove it's new, 270 00:15:12.759 --> 00:15:15.159 right and then yeah, so how does that work? Is 271 00:15:15.159 --> 00:15:16.840 that always done through journals? 272 00:15:17.080 --> 00:15:17.480 Yeah? 273 00:15:17.519 --> 00:15:21.080 So, up until I think nineteen thirty one, it was 274 00:15:21.240 --> 00:15:25.000 kind of all over the place, you know, so, I 275 00:15:25.039 --> 00:15:29.639 guess just a brief history lesson on naming species conventions. 276 00:15:30.639 --> 00:15:34.000 All of this was kind of started in you know, 277 00:15:34.399 --> 00:15:37.080 the Age of Enlightenment. In the seventeen hundreds, people started 278 00:15:37.080 --> 00:15:39.759 talking about trying to do a better job categorizing the 279 00:15:40.240 --> 00:15:44.679 organisms around them and categorizing life. It's all culminated in 280 00:15:46.159 --> 00:15:51.440 carl Lenaeus, Carlas Linaeus, who's a researcher, I believe in Sweden. 281 00:15:52.080 --> 00:15:55.440 He's a botanist mostly, but he published this giant work 282 00:15:55.559 --> 00:16:01.279 called system A Natura, Systema Nature, and in that he 283 00:16:02.200 --> 00:16:05.279 kind of tried to categorize all organisms, plants, and animals 284 00:16:05.320 --> 00:16:07.559 that he knew about, most of which are from Europe. 285 00:16:07.679 --> 00:16:11.000 But in that he also made up what's called binomial nomenclature. 286 00:16:11.639 --> 00:16:14.159 You know, this is the scientific name of a species. 287 00:16:14.159 --> 00:16:16.759 This is the species genus name and the species name 288 00:16:17.120 --> 00:16:22.159 like saens. Yeah, so Homo sapiens is the Homo's the 289 00:16:22.200 --> 00:16:26.279 genus sapiens is the species sapiens. The second sapiens is 290 00:16:26.320 --> 00:16:32.200 the subspecies name cool. And so this kind of became 291 00:16:32.480 --> 00:16:35.320 the naming convention. Prior to that, people had already played 292 00:16:35.360 --> 00:16:38.440 around with kind of these descriptive names, but they were 293 00:16:38.440 --> 00:16:42.440 making them like twelve words long, all in Latin, and 294 00:16:42.480 --> 00:16:45.879 so you'd have something like, you know, just I wish 295 00:16:45.919 --> 00:16:48.399 I had a good example, but it would be describing 296 00:16:48.440 --> 00:16:51.480 this one little fish from the Mediterranean, and it had 297 00:16:51.519 --> 00:16:55.720 just like three lines worth of very long Latin words 298 00:16:55.759 --> 00:16:58.879 describing it. People realized that was a little overkill, so 299 00:16:58.919 --> 00:17:00.600 we ended up with just kind of these two names, 300 00:17:00.639 --> 00:17:04.599 and then this hierarchical classification system that Lena has developed 301 00:17:04.599 --> 00:17:06.880 as well, with with with the help of some other 302 00:17:06.920 --> 00:17:10.160 researchers and other people's notes, and so this is where 303 00:17:10.200 --> 00:17:13.720 you you know, you've taken you back to u high 304 00:17:13.759 --> 00:17:18.920 school or middle school biology class, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species, 305 00:17:19.000 --> 00:17:21.559 and kingdom. 306 00:17:22.119 --> 00:17:22.599 Exactly. 307 00:17:23.680 --> 00:17:24.480 Yay high school. 308 00:17:25.240 --> 00:17:29.680 Yeah, And so so it's stuck and that's what people 309 00:17:29.680 --> 00:17:34.039 are still using there. There are some camps that see, 310 00:17:34.440 --> 00:17:36.599 you know, because it is kind of an artificial system 311 00:17:36.640 --> 00:17:41.559 that humans has classifiers as organizers have developed to deal 312 00:17:41.640 --> 00:17:46.039 with trying to sort out the very complex history of life. 313 00:17:46.160 --> 00:17:47.920 There are some people that really don't like it. There 314 00:17:47.960 --> 00:17:49.519 have been a lot of proposals to kind of come 315 00:17:49.599 --> 00:17:50.680 up with a different system. 316 00:17:50.880 --> 00:17:52.519 So there's like this thing called was like. 317 00:17:52.519 --> 00:17:56.240 Philo code, where you're kind of really just focusing only 318 00:17:56.240 --> 00:17:59.920 on the tips, like the species. When you say like 319 00:18:00.079 --> 00:18:01.519 tips on a tree, I guess if you're looking at 320 00:18:01.599 --> 00:18:05.160 like a phylogene and evolutionary tree, the tip is the species, right, 321 00:18:05.720 --> 00:18:09.119 And so it kind of removes this hierarchy, which does 322 00:18:09.279 --> 00:18:11.240 kind of get confusing sometimes, but I think that makes 323 00:18:11.240 --> 00:18:14.119 them more confusing. So we've stuck with what Linaeus came 324 00:18:14.200 --> 00:18:17.319 up with over you know, a couple hundred years ago, 325 00:18:18.000 --> 00:18:21.599 and so in terms of in terms of that, people 326 00:18:21.640 --> 00:18:25.519 were kind of describing stuff all over the place. The 327 00:18:25.599 --> 00:18:29.440 early literature is very sticky and hard to get through. 328 00:18:29.680 --> 00:18:33.759 It's the descriptions. Linus's descriptions were like two sentences long. 329 00:18:35.480 --> 00:18:39.119 It's not great to only describe a new species and 330 00:18:39.160 --> 00:18:42.279 two sentences it doesn't really get a lot of information across. 331 00:18:44.079 --> 00:18:46.400 And people you know, started. 332 00:18:46.079 --> 00:18:49.519 Expanding on this, but it's still was kind of not standardized. 333 00:18:49.519 --> 00:18:51.960 It was all over the place until in the nineteen 334 00:18:52.000 --> 00:18:55.359 thirties they had a big meeting and they developed what's 335 00:18:55.359 --> 00:18:59.039 called the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, and in plants, 336 00:18:59.079 --> 00:19:02.240 there's also the Internet Code of Botanical Nomenclature. They meet 337 00:19:02.400 --> 00:19:05.000 every I don't know ten or fifteen years and kind 338 00:19:05.000 --> 00:19:07.319 of make a new edition of the IC. We call 339 00:19:07.319 --> 00:19:11.319 it the ICZN, the International Code Zoological Nomenclature, and. 340 00:19:11.279 --> 00:19:12.039 It's this book. 341 00:19:12.079 --> 00:19:15.920 It's not huge, and one pages in French, one pages 342 00:19:15.960 --> 00:19:17.880 in English, because apparently those are the only two languages 343 00:19:17.920 --> 00:19:20.359 that matter in taxonomy. 344 00:19:21.039 --> 00:19:23.119 And it just lays down all the rules. 345 00:19:23.759 --> 00:19:26.440 So when you are just defining a new species and 346 00:19:26.480 --> 00:19:30.519 describing it, you have to write a formal description. You 347 00:19:30.519 --> 00:19:33.759 have to provide an illustration of the species or a 348 00:19:34.160 --> 00:19:36.519 or a photograph of the species, and then you have 349 00:19:36.559 --> 00:19:39.279 to deposit what are called type specimens or type material 350 00:19:39.599 --> 00:19:43.839 at a museum or you know, at some sort of 351 00:19:43.880 --> 00:19:46.519 institution where it is publicly available for other people to 352 00:19:46.559 --> 00:19:46.920 look at. 353 00:19:47.640 --> 00:19:49.680 What's a type specimen. I hear that all the time 354 00:19:49.680 --> 00:19:50.279 with Bigfoot. 355 00:19:50.359 --> 00:19:53.359 Yeah, a type specimen is when you're doing your description, 356 00:19:53.880 --> 00:19:56.759 you kind of set aside to two different types of types. 357 00:19:57.119 --> 00:20:00.480 There's a holotype and then there are paratypes. So the 358 00:20:00.519 --> 00:20:07.160 holotype is the model specimen for this your hypothesis. What 359 00:20:07.200 --> 00:20:10.480 you're hypothesizing is a new species. So like that is 360 00:20:10.680 --> 00:20:12.680 going to stay at the museum, and that is going 361 00:20:12.720 --> 00:20:15.519 to be the one that if you think, oh, I 362 00:20:15.519 --> 00:20:17.680 don't really think that's a new species because it looks 363 00:20:17.720 --> 00:20:20.559 really similar to this other species that was already described, 364 00:20:20.839 --> 00:20:23.680 you can go to that museum, ask for the holotype, 365 00:20:23.839 --> 00:20:28.680 check it out, and you know, really that is the 366 00:20:28.680 --> 00:20:32.240 one that you, as the researcher doing the description, want 367 00:20:33.319 --> 00:20:36.480 that specimen to show all the characteristics that you think 368 00:20:36.640 --> 00:20:37.960 make that a. 369 00:20:37.880 --> 00:20:39.680 New species or its own species. 370 00:20:39.920 --> 00:20:42.839 The typing, as I said, was kind of made up 371 00:20:43.079 --> 00:20:46.640 in the late eighteen hundred's early nineteen hundreds. So unfortunately, 372 00:20:46.680 --> 00:20:52.559 there's not actually a type for Homo sapiens. Where I 373 00:20:52.559 --> 00:20:57.680 can't remember, Oh, somebody wanted to have their body set 374 00:20:57.720 --> 00:21:00.839 I think maybe like Cuvier. It was a very famous 375 00:21:00.880 --> 00:21:04.839 French naturalist and anatomist. I think wanted his body to 376 00:21:04.880 --> 00:21:06.960 be the type of Homo sapiens. 377 00:21:08.000 --> 00:21:11.359 Wow, I mean, sho't shouldn't they dig up carl and 378 00:21:11.440 --> 00:21:12.400 Ans I mean, would that be. 379 00:21:14.720 --> 00:21:19.160 Proposals of doing that as well, and so, and then 380 00:21:19.279 --> 00:21:21.759 you have what are called paratypes, which are. 381 00:21:22.680 --> 00:21:25.440 Kind of you choose how many there are going to be. 382 00:21:25.680 --> 00:21:28.200 You usually want to get like a bunch of specimens 383 00:21:28.200 --> 00:21:31.160 from what you think the geographic range, from all over 384 00:21:31.200 --> 00:21:34.720 that range, and then you know, a good variation in 385 00:21:34.799 --> 00:21:37.920 terms of the size. Or you could also have like 386 00:21:37.960 --> 00:21:40.599 different levels of development, so you could have larvae, you 387 00:21:40.599 --> 00:21:45.160 could have subadults, or you know, if you're dealing with plants, 388 00:21:45.200 --> 00:21:46.960 you could have you know, the seeds and the fruit 389 00:21:47.079 --> 00:21:49.599 and the whatever. And so you have all those and 390 00:21:49.640 --> 00:21:52.079 you call those are paratypes. So those are also called 391 00:21:52.079 --> 00:21:54.799 secondary types, and those are also supposed to be very 392 00:21:54.839 --> 00:21:57.279 good representatives of what you think is a new species. 393 00:21:58.480 --> 00:21:59.599 And you usually. 394 00:21:59.319 --> 00:22:01.640 Also tend to and it gets the paratypes at a 395 00:22:01.640 --> 00:22:03.920 lot of different museums, not just one place, so they're 396 00:22:04.000 --> 00:22:05.799 kind of spread out so people can see that in 397 00:22:05.799 --> 00:22:07.759 different parts of the world. So you have to write 398 00:22:07.759 --> 00:22:10.359 your formal description, you need a picture, you need to 399 00:22:10.559 --> 00:22:13.240 designate some types, and then you also have to propose 400 00:22:13.279 --> 00:22:15.480 a name and then explain the name. 401 00:22:16.640 --> 00:22:20.559