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Moby Richard:
What's in a Name?

Globicephala melas and Globicephala macrorhynchus -- these are the scientific names for two closely related cetacean species commonly called ca'aing whale, pothead, blackfish, or pilot whale. The problem with common names is that, because they vary -- like slang -- from region to region and from language to language, one animal may have several different names. An extreme example of the confusion than can result is the name "dolphin," which refers to a fish, a restaurant delicacy, as well as to a cetacean. Because customers confused the fish with the cetacean and would not order "dolphin," most restaurants now list the fish by its Hawaiian name, mahi mahi.

Another problem with common names for cetaceans is that they come from whalers' terms and are based on size, not on how the animals are related. All cetaceans longer than 15 feet (5 meters) were called whales, and most smaller species were called dolphins or porpoises. For instance, the cetacean commonly called the killer "whale" is actually the largest member of the dolphin family, Delphinidae.


[Killer Whales]
PHOTOGRAPH BY JOHN E. HEYNING

Given such confusion, it is easy to see why scientists use such long and hard-to-pronounce (but accurate) names. With scientific nomenclature, each species has its own unique name that is recognized in every language. Scientific names are always in Latin and often describe some attribute of the particular species. The white-beaked dolphin, for example, has a descriptive scientific name, Langenorhynchus albirostris: albirostris means white rostrum or beak. The animal commonly called either killer whale or orca is scientifically known only as Orcinus orca; the fear that humans used to have toward the killer whale is reflected in its scientific name, which roughly translates as "the whale from the realm of the dead."


[Mahi Mahi]
The mahi mahi, which is sometimes called a dolphin, is a fish, not a cetacean. NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY MODEL; DAN WATSON

Heyning, John E. Masters of the Ocean Realm: Whales, Dolphins, and Porpoises. (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1995), p. 21.


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