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We have three species named daddy long legs? Why are humans like this?



You're not going to believe it when I tell you about how we name people and places. ;)


That's why the scientific Latin names were created. The robin in North America (Turdus migratorius) was named after a similar looking one that settlers were familiar with in Europe (Erithacus rubecula) and there are many cases where similar namespace collisions for animals and plants occur in daily language.


Unfortunately also many of the scientific Latin names have been given rather carelessly.

Linnaeus is one of the worst offenders. He has taken most of his names from classic Latin and Greek authors, like Pliny the Elder and Aristotle, but especially for the Greek names it appears that he has not actually read the original ancient books, or at least he has read them very superficially.

The result is that a very large number of names of animals and plants given by Linnaeus have been applied to very different species than those for which they had been used traditionally.

The genus of harvestmen Phalangium, which is the subject of this research is one of the animals misnamed by Linnaeus.

Aristotle has used 2 words for naming spiders, one for the spiders that make webs ("arachnee") and the other was "phalangion". The description of the latter corresponds to a wolf spider (which is now named "Lycosa", scientifically).

Instead of using "Phalangium" for wolf spiders, Linnaeus has wrongly applied it to harvestmen. There are no closer similarities between spiders and harvestmen than between spiders and any other arachnids, except that both spiders and harvestmen have relatively long legs for their bodies.

When looking at harvestmen it is very easy to see that they are not spiders, because their abdomen is not separated from the thorax and they do not have the poisonous "fangs" characteristic for spiders.

The ancestors of spiders and harvestmen were already separated during Silurian, at a time when the ancestors of humans and fish were not yet separated.


"Naming things is hard" seems to be a universal truth.


DaddyLonglegsManager


AbstractDaddyLongLegsConfigDispatcherServletInitializer


Composition is better than inheritance. So I refactored this into a ListConfigDispatcherServletInitializer which can accept a list of ConfigStrategies for dispatching.

Added AbstractDaddyLongLegsConfigStrategy, to help with implementing concrete config strategies for DaddyLongLegs.


Factory()


The C. elegans roundworm is one of the most important model organisms in biology. I have to specify "roundworm", because, well...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._elegans_(disambiguation)



Others have commented that in Britain the name refers to a fly, but this article about a railway in Great Britain makes it clear it was named after the spider. The devolution of language is fascinating.


Not really. I've just read the article. The two terms seem to be just alternatives.


What kind of a name is that in the first place!!


They do have long legs compared to their body size, so the name is not entirely inaccurate. Unlike guinea pigs or elephant shrews.


This reminds me that gen alpha has a whole different experience here lol


People are free to say opilion, tipula or spider. Is much easier to remember and write than daddysomething




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