This article is within the scope of WikiProject Lepidoptera, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of
butterflies and moths on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join
the discussion and see a list of open tasks.LepidopteraWikipedia:WikiProject LepidopteraTemplate:WikiProject LepidopteraLepidoptera articles
The following discussion is an archived discussion of a
requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
Freyer's purple emperor →
Apatura metis – The
WikiProject Lepidoptera uses scientific instead of common names for butterflies. Most butterflies don't have common names to begin with; species that do have common names often have different common names in different parts of the English-speaking world. Lots of common names are ambiguous; many are used for three, four or five mutually disjoint clades. Apatura metis is literally the only species in the subfamily
Apaturinae whose article still uses a common name for its title. For easy verification, a list of
all Apaturinae species with known common names is being provided
here. Relisting see below.
Andrewa (
talk) 09:18, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
Noym (
talk)
20:50, 18 September 2011 (UTC)reply
You're right, it's not obvious that
Wikipedia:WikiProject Lepidoptera has any more specific guideline, but that's just because it was never formally documented on the project page. Look for example at
this discussion from 2007, in which seven out of eight participants favor scientific names and the eighth contributor doesn't really oppose them either,
this ongoing discussion, which is about something else but in which everybody tacitly assumes that articles use (or eventually will use) scientific names for titles. The question in this discussion is whether common names should be used in article links; the possibility of using them in article titles doesn't even come up any more.
Aside from that I can only repeat myself:
Most Lepidoptera simply do not have any common names. Just
browse around a bit. Some genera contain literal dozens of species and just a handful of them have common names.
Many common names are useless as article titles because they are ambiguous.
The name
Small White refers to one species, one genus, and one breed of pig. "
The Whites" refers to one subfamily and three different genera; so does
Sulfur Butterfly.
Metalmark refers to one family and one tribe.
Orange Tip refers to one tribe, one genus, one species in that genus, and one other genus.
Hackberry refers to five species.
Empress refers to six species in two genera.
Dozens of names, for example
Dogface,
Grass Yellow, or
Punch, may refer either to one genus or to one important species in that genus.
Apollo may refer either to one genus or to one of two important species in it.
These examples are the trivial ones because these names, while referring to three, four, or five clades each, refere to the same three, four, or five clades everywhere on Earth. Many names tend to mean different things in different parts of the globe.
Sulfurs for example, refers to one genus in American English but to one subfamily and two other genera in Britsh English.
Many common names that are not ambiguous are regional.
Hamadryas is referred to as "the Crackers", "the Calicoes", and "the Clicks" in different parts of the English-speaking world.
The bottom line is that somewhere between eighty and ninety percent of article on Lepidoptera species will have to use scientific names no matter what. Using common names for some fraction of the remaining percent would achieve nothing except make maintenance more difficult.
Noym (
talk)
10:41, 26 September 2011 (UTC)reply
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a
requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Lepidoptera, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of
butterflies and moths on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join
the discussion and see a list of open tasks.LepidopteraWikipedia:WikiProject LepidopteraTemplate:WikiProject LepidopteraLepidoptera articles
The following discussion is an archived discussion of a
requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
Freyer's purple emperor →
Apatura metis – The
WikiProject Lepidoptera uses scientific instead of common names for butterflies. Most butterflies don't have common names to begin with; species that do have common names often have different common names in different parts of the English-speaking world. Lots of common names are ambiguous; many are used for three, four or five mutually disjoint clades. Apatura metis is literally the only species in the subfamily
Apaturinae whose article still uses a common name for its title. For easy verification, a list of
all Apaturinae species with known common names is being provided
here. Relisting see below.
Andrewa (
talk) 09:18, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
Noym (
talk)
20:50, 18 September 2011 (UTC)reply
You're right, it's not obvious that
Wikipedia:WikiProject Lepidoptera has any more specific guideline, but that's just because it was never formally documented on the project page. Look for example at
this discussion from 2007, in which seven out of eight participants favor scientific names and the eighth contributor doesn't really oppose them either,
this ongoing discussion, which is about something else but in which everybody tacitly assumes that articles use (or eventually will use) scientific names for titles. The question in this discussion is whether common names should be used in article links; the possibility of using them in article titles doesn't even come up any more.
Aside from that I can only repeat myself:
Most Lepidoptera simply do not have any common names. Just
browse around a bit. Some genera contain literal dozens of species and just a handful of them have common names.
Many common names are useless as article titles because they are ambiguous.
The name
Small White refers to one species, one genus, and one breed of pig. "
The Whites" refers to one subfamily and three different genera; so does
Sulfur Butterfly.
Metalmark refers to one family and one tribe.
Orange Tip refers to one tribe, one genus, one species in that genus, and one other genus.
Hackberry refers to five species.
Empress refers to six species in two genera.
Dozens of names, for example
Dogface,
Grass Yellow, or
Punch, may refer either to one genus or to one important species in that genus.
Apollo may refer either to one genus or to one of two important species in it.
These examples are the trivial ones because these names, while referring to three, four, or five clades each, refere to the same three, four, or five clades everywhere on Earth. Many names tend to mean different things in different parts of the globe.
Sulfurs for example, refers to one genus in American English but to one subfamily and two other genera in Britsh English.
Many common names that are not ambiguous are regional.
Hamadryas is referred to as "the Crackers", "the Calicoes", and "the Clicks" in different parts of the English-speaking world.
The bottom line is that somewhere between eighty and ninety percent of article on Lepidoptera species will have to use scientific names no matter what. Using common names for some fraction of the remaining percent would achieve nothing except make maintenance more difficult.
Noym (
talk)
10:41, 26 September 2011 (UTC)reply
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a
requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.