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By Sophie A Maycock BSc(Hons) MSc

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Species Names

Translating complicated scientific names

Carcharodon carcharias - Great white shark (📷 Willyam Bradberry Shutterstock)

Great white sharks (aka white pointers, white sharks) are known as Carcharodon carcharias to scientists.

Carcharodon carcharias comes from Ancient Greek words: “kárkharos” and “odous” meaning sharpened, jagged teeth and “karkharías” which means pointed. Together the name describes the shape of the great white’s teeth.

White sharks have triangular-shaped, serrated teeth, which are perfect for cutting slices of flesh out of their prey. You can see great whites shaking their heads whilst scavenging on large animals like whales because they dig their bottom row of teeth in and then twist the top row of serrated teeth to cut out a slice of meat.

Orectolobus maculatus - Spotted wobbegong (📷 Erin Wyatt / Shutterstock)

Spotted wobbegongs are known as Orectolobus maculatus to scientists.

The common name wobbegong actually comes from the Aboriginal Australian for "shaggy beard".

Orectolobus comes from the Greek "orektos" and "lobos", which literally traslates to stretched-out lobes. This describes how wobbegongs have especially elongated barbels that they use to detect their prey in the sand.

Maculatus comes from the Latin word "maculosus", which means “spotted".

Taken together the name describes a wobbegong with spotted skin.

Sphyrna mokarran - Great hammerhead (📷 Martin Voeller / Shutterstock)

Great hamerheads are known as Sphyrna mokarran to scientists.

Mokarran is an Arabic name, meaning "greatest" or "mightiest", referencing that this is the largest species of all the hammerheads.

Sphyrna comes from the Greek word "sphyra" which literally means hammer, to describe the bizarre shape of their heads.

Interestingly, it is thought that the addition of the 'n' in Sphyrna was actually a spelling mistake when it was taken from the original Greek!

Rhincodon typus - whale shark (📷 FGBNMS/Eckert / WikimediaCommons)

Rhincodon is often the victim of mistranslation and people think it comes from the Greek “rhynchos” which would mean snout. But Rhincodon actually comes from the Greek “rhínē” and “odoús” which literally translates to “raspy tooth”. This refers to the whale shark’s multiple layers of tiny teeth that resemble a file.

“Typus” literally means this is the type species of the Genus Rhincodon. Scientists use type species as a standard in taxonomy to build evolutionary trees around. If we learned that the sharks in this group were not actually related in the way we previously thought and we moved them around or changed their names, the whale shark’s species name would always stay the same.

Negaprion brevirostris - lemon shark (📸 Guido Zsilavecz / WikimediaCommons)

Lemon sharks are known as Negaprion brevirostris to scientists.

The genus name Negaprion does from the Latin “negatus”, which means ‘to deny’ and the Greek “prion”, meaning ‘saw’. Together this describes this shark’s un-serrated teeth. Unlike great whites (Carcharodon carcharias) or tiger sharks (Galeocerdo cuvier), that have serrated teeth, lemon sharks’ have long, pointed teeth, perfect for grasping into their slippery fish prey.

The specific name brevirostris come from Latin and literally translates to ‘wide forehead’. Again, this describes the shape of the lemon shark’s face… not a very flattering description is it!?

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Carcharhinus longimanus - Oceanic whitetip (📷 Unsplash)

Oceanic whitetips (aka whitetip whalers) are known as Carcharhinus longimanus to scientists.

Sharks in the genus Carcharhinus get their name from "karcharos", meaning sharp / jagged and "rhínē", meaning "raspy" (Greek). This refers to the rough texture of shark skin, which is actually like sandpaper when you run your hand across it backwards.

Longimanus comes from the Latin words "longus" and "manus", which literally translates to "long hand". This name describes the incredible, large and paddle-shaped pectoral fins that make the oceanic whitetip so recognisable.

Lamna ditropis - Salmon shark (📷 Warren Metcalf / Shutterstock)

Salmon sharks are known as Lamna ditropis to scientists.

Salmon sharks were actually originally lumped in with Porbeagles (L. nasus). It wasn't until scientists realised they were two different species that the salmon shark it's own name - after it's favourite food.

Their scientific name ditropis comes from the Greek "di-" and "tropis", which literally means two-keeled. This describes the projections out from each side of the shark's tail, which keep it stable in the water.

The genus name Lamna is inspired by the Greek mythological character "Lamia", who, as punishment for her terrible cruelty (eating children in revenge for the death of her own children), had her face turned into a monstrous mask by the Gods. Equating these sharks to a mythological devouring monster.

Somniosus microcephalus - Greenland shark (📷 Dotted Yeti / Shutterstock)

Greenland sharks are known as Somniosus microcephalus to scientists.

These long names can look really intimidating when you don’t recognise what they mean, but they actually make a lot of sense when you break them down and translate them into something more familiar!

The Greenland shark’s species name comes from the Latin which literally means-sleepy, in reference to their sluggish movements. Their species name comes from the Greek “mikros” meaning “small” and “kephale” meaning “head” or “brain”. These sharks are so-named because it was once thought that their sedate nature meant they were especially stupid and not capable of any real intelligence.

On the contrary, scientists now that Greenland sharks move slowly in order to conserve energy in their freezing environment. Sounds pretty smart to me! Whatsmore, we now know that these sharks are the lowest living vertebrate on the planet! They may live to be 600 years. Scientists are actually now studying their brains to try to understand why ageing does not degrade their cognitive functioning in the same way it does for human beings - they may even hold the secret to curing Alzheimer’s.

Many people wonder why we use scientific names because they seem more complicated than the common names, but binomial nomenclature is very important. Because every scientist in the world uses the same name, it means there is never any confusion about which species we are talking about. Common names, however, can very depending which country you are in. For instance, Greenland sharks are also known as ground sharks, sleeper sharks or gurry sharks in various English-speaking countries and go by as many as 30 other names in other tongues.

Stegostoma tigrinum - Zebra shark (📷 Lewis Burnett / Shutterstock)

Zebra sharks (aka leopard sharks) are known as Stegostoma tigrinum to scientists.

Stegostoma comes from the Greek "stego" meaning "cover" and "stoma" meaning "mouth". This describes how the upper jaw and snout of these sharks bulges out and hides their mouth.

Tigrinum is Latin for "striped". This name might seem counter intuitive for a shark with spots, but in fact, this species has black and white stripes when they are born, which develop into yellow, tiger-like stripes with age, before eventually breaking up into the spots we see on mature sharks.

These colour changes have created a lot of confusion in the past, that is still being resolved today!

In fact, their name was very recently changed (from Stegostoma fasciatum) because scientists realised that what we originally thought were different species, were, in fact, both zebra sharks. The scientist who described them first got to name them, so the name was switched back to tigrinum.

Alopias vulpinus - Common thresher shark (📷 bearacreative / Shutterstock)

Common thresher sharks are known as Alopias vulpiinus to scientists.

This name might sound like a mouthful, but it's actually especially simple. It comes from "alopex", meaning "fox" in Greek and "vulpinus" meaning "fox-like" in Latin... So fox fox! A shark so nice, they named it twice!

Scientists chose this name because they considered this shark especially cunning, like a fox, because they often escaped fishermen's lines.

This is one of those incidents, where scientists chose names to refer back to animals that are more familiar.

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Carcharias taurus - Sandtiger (📷 Shankar S / WikimediaCommons)

Sandtigers (aka ragged tooth, raggie, grey nurse shark, ground shark) are known as Carcharias taurus to scientists.

Carcharias comes from the Ancient Greek "kárkharos', meaning sharp or jagged. This references this sharks expecially ragged teeth.

Taurus - Latin for "bull" - is used to describe the hunched and bulky shape of this shark, which is especially pronounced in the females.

The greater spotted catshark - Scyliorhinus stellaris (📷Bernard Picton / WikimediaCommons)

Otodus megalodon - TheMegalodon (📸 Herschel Hoffmeyer / Shutterstock)

The Megalodon is known as Otodus megalodon to scientists.

These complicated names can look really confusing when you don’t understand what they mean, but they actually make a lot of sense when you break the words down and translate them!

For example, the name megalodon comes from Ancient Greek: “mégas", meaning “mighty” and “odoús” - “tooth”. So they are literally called “mighty teeth”. The surprising (and pretty funny) part comes in the Genus name though; Otodus, also from Ancient Greek comes from “ōt” and “odoús” tooth… so “ear tooth”. This name describes the shape of the Meg’s mighty teeth - like an ear.

You might wonder why we bother with these over-the-top names… Well, binomial nomenclature is actually really important. All scientists all over the world use the same name, so these names avoid any confusion about which animal we are discussing.

The name also tells us a little something about their evolutionary lineage. That is to say, how they evolved and what other species they are closely related to. In the past the Meg has been called Carcharias megalodon, Procarcharodon megalodon, Carcharocles megalodon, Megaselachus megalodon, Carcharodon megalodon and Selache megalodon. Their Genus name has changed so many times because it took scientists a long time to figure out where Megalodon’s sat on the shark family tree. Who knows, it may even change again.

Triakis semifasciata - Leopard shark (📷 R. Maximiliane / Shutterstock)

Leopard sharks (aka leopard catsharks) are known as Triakis semifasciata to scientists.

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Heterodontus portusjacksoni - Port Jackson shark (📸 Guido Zsilavecz / WikimediaCommons)

Scientists call the Port Jackson shark Heterodontus portusjacksoni.

The Genus name Heterodontus comes from the Greek “heteros” (different) and “odontos” (tooth). Taken together this word describes this shark’s teeth - their teeth are not all the same shape. At the front of their mouth, their teeth are pointed, but towards the back their teeth change into broad, flattened molars. These sharks have quite a broad diet and their teeth are perfectly adapted to allow them to eat many different things. They can use their sharp, pointy front teeth to grasp onto wriggley fish, but their back teeth are perfect for grinding down the tough parts of shellfish and urchins.

The species name literally describes where these sharks are found. These sharks were first discovered in Port Jackson, Australia and they have a very limited distribution in western Australia and occasionally in New Zealand.

Scyliorhinus retifer - Chain catshark (📷 Spotted Yeti / Shutterstock)

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Galeocerdo cuvier - Tiger shark

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Pristis pectinata - Smalltooth sawfish (📷 D Ramey Logan / Wikimedia Commons

Cetrohinus maximus - Basking shark (📷 Greg Skomal / WikimediaCommons

Basking sharks are known as Cetorhinus maximus to scientists.

These long names can be really confusing when you don’t understand what they mean, but actually they make a lot of sense when you break the words down and translate them into something more familiar!

Cetorhinus maximus comes from both Ancient Greek and Latin words. Cetorhinus from the Greek “ketos” meaning sea monster and “rhinos” meaning nose or snout. “Maximus” means largest or greatest in Latin. Basically the name describes an enormous marine animal with a very large nose!

Interestingly, the basking shark was given the name “maximus” because it was thought to be the biggest fish in the sea at the time. Later on, naturalists discovered the larger whale shark, shunting the basking shark into second, but because it had already been scientifically named, the basking shark’s formal name wasn’t changed.

Triaenodon obesus - Whitetip reef shark (📷 Kris Mikael Krister / WikimediaCommons)

Whitetip reef sharks (aka whitetips, light tips and blunthead sharks) are known as Triaenodon obesus to scientists.

Triaenodon comes from the Greek “triaina" - having three points, and “odon” - tooth. This name literally describes the shape of these sharks teeth. As well as the usual long spike you would expect to see on each tooth, this is also flanked by two more spikes known as cusplets, that make their teeth look like little tridents.

Obsesus literally means “fat” in Latin. This refers to this sharks stout, blunt-nosed face, which makes them look a bit chubby. Who knew scientists could be so mean!

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