As a professional ecologist I found Castwell’s piece on Latin names to be highly entertaining and right on the mark. I spent years studying aquatic invertebrates, most notably chironomids, and despite learning many species I could never keep up with the changes in taxonomic designations. Nor did I enjoy the taxonomic aspects of studying invertebrates as I was more concerned with the ecology of the little beasts. But many of my grad school colleagues were really into the taxonony and I always felt a bit inferior because I let someone else worry about that aspect.
But, one of my fondest memories is typified by the following quote from Lewis Carroll which graced the Introduction of an invertebrate key written by a renowned biologist named Pennack. This put it all into a proper perspective for me.
[i]"What’s the use of their having names the Gnat said, `if they won’t answer to them?’
No use to THEM,' said Alice; but it’s useful to the people who name them, I suppose.[/i]
That pretty much said it all and although I can still identify and spew out the correct Latin names for many species, bloodworm will suffice quite nicely.
thanks rick, nice reply, good to get once in awhile. As you can understand, all of it was true. Oh, in the past I sometimes used “Occidentalis improbablus” when I was unsure. Sometimes it worked. 8)
I also enjoyed the article. When I started really getting into fly fishing I started trying to learn the latin names, then I found out about how the bug gods are almost constantly reclassifying the differnet bugs. I think they do it just to prevent people from us from catching up with them :lol: I think there are a few species where it would be beneficial to anglers to know atleast the latin for the species. Two in particular would be BWO’s and Sulphers. Seems like there are atleast 3 different species that are all lumped in as sulphers and who knows how many different species are lumped in as BWO’s. These are the main ones that will cause me to pull out the reference books to figure out just which hatch someone is really talking about since sometimes they’ll overlap one another. Probably wouldn’t matter much to the fly fisherman who buys his flies, but more to the tyer. Anyways, great article!
Do ya think the fish really cares WHICH BWO he’s looking at? I don’t. If you get the size and presentation right, he’ll probably take it. In really, really clear water and bright sunlight, you might need the right color too. But something tells me the trout aren’t sitting there measuring the length of the tail barbules or counting to see if there are two or three before he decides whether or not to eat it. If he is doing these things, then that big ole hook hanging out of the bottom of the fly is probably going to scare him off before a slight difference in wing shape, color, etc. will.
That’s MY opinion.
Good article, JC. I got hammered on another forum recently for saying I had watched a hatch that included at least 5 different species of mayflies and 2 different types of midges. That’s literally how I wrote it, and I got creamed for being “too scientific” and “taking the fun out of fishing.” I guess when I estimated hook sizes it was too much for those guys. :lol: