Lumpers and Splitters

I like to know the names of things. Whether it’s the weed that leaves flat sticky seeds on my socks or the little worms that eat holes through my books, it drives me crazy if I don’t know their names. And though I often settle for the common name, it’s the scientific one that really catches my fancy. The long-jawed, spiny-legged, humpbacked spider is great but Tetragnathus quasimodo is better. For the biologist and naturalist, the scientific name describes not just the thing itself, but places it in the larger context of relationships to other organisms. With the genus and species name the spider can be placed in its proper order on the library shelf of life. Taxonomy, the study of naming and classifying organisms, is like the Dewey Decimal system for living things. And in Hawaii, taxonomy is put to the test.

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