The Law of Priority
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Jul 13, 2009 | by Adrian Binns
In my last blog I talked about birds that had dubious common names. Now we’ll look at the scientific names of two species that fall into that category.
In wildlife nomenclature there is a Law of Priority which essentially states that the name given a new species by its original describer stands if the publication in which it first appeared is considered adequate. It stands in its initial form despite mistakes in the name of the color, place of geographic origin, misspelling, grammar or other errors. Over the years this law has stayed relatively true especially in regards to scientific names (Latin words, Genus followed by species). For common names, however, there has been some leaning towards name standardization in recent years.
The scientific name for Red-cockaded Woodpecker (above) is Picoides borealis. Picoides comes from the Latin picus ‘the great black woodpecker’ as in the Black Woodpecker of Europe, and oides, meaning to ‘resemble’. The word borealis means northern, as in boreal. The bird was named by a French ornithologist, Louis Vieillot, who thought it came from the northern United States. He was slightly off! This United States endemic is a resident of the southeast pinewoods.
In both examples there was likely some confusion amongst the describers, yet the Law of Priority allows these mistakes to stand.