Anophtalmus hitleri is the official scientific name assigned to a species of the carabid family discovered in caves in the Celje area (Slovenia) almost a century ago. Apart from being blind (a normal condition because they always live underground), this beetle, about two inches long and brown in color, has almost nothing special about it. However, it is quite appreciated by collectors (captured, killed and traded), and the reason is none other than its scientific name. The second part of its name, specifically, hitleri, assigned by the German entomologist and animal collector Óscar Scheibel in 1933 as a tribute to Adolf Hitler.
Less known but doubly questionable is the case of a giant insect (40 centimeters long) that lived in the Upper Carboniferous (about 300 million years ago) and was discovered (the fossil remains) in 1934 by the German paleontologist P. Guthörl, who had the idea of assigning the name Rochlingia hitleri, in honor of the macabre dictator and Hermann Röchling, a wealthy businessman and prominent anti-Semite who held various positions in the Nazi party.
There are also nominations of dubious honor for other tyrants, such as the butterfly Hypopta mussolinii. There is no news of animals that remember the dictator Francisco Franco.
Criticism for maintaining scientific names that commemorate people or events that are clearly negative for humanity have been repeated cyclically in recent years, without any decision being taken so far by the bodies responsible for the nomenclature and cataloging of species.
In recent months, the claim for amendment has resurfaced through various opinion articles in scientific journals and social networks, even forcing an official response, last January, by the competent institution in the matter of names for animals, the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (International Code of Zoological Nomenclature).
In an article signed by the representatives of this entity, published in the Zoological Journal, it was indicated that it is certainly not advisable to give animals names of people or reprehensible actions but, after analyzing the proposal to withdraw cases such as Anophtalmus hitleri, The conclusion - of this nomenclature commission - is that "the stability of scientific names is essential for all activities under the umbrella of biological sciences, including the conservation of biodiversity."
"The Commission acknowledges and understands the ongoing debates about the appropriateness of certain names based on a variety of ethical arguments and is aware of the various approaches proposed for how to address these situations. However, the Commission's goal is to promote the stability of the nomenclature without limiting the taxonomic judgment", say the signatories of this article verbatim.
The popular science magazine New Scientist published a report on this controversy over scientific names on August 25.
Along a very similar line, Science magazine publishes this week a report by Rodrigo Pérez Ortega (scientific journalist) in which some points of the debate are exposed and the request for revision of the names of animals and plants that refer to slavery is added. , colonialism or dignity to marginalized communities, as pointed out by paleontologist Anjali Goswami, president of the Linnean Society, which publishes the journal in which the response of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature has been published.
"There are ways that we can at least start to make some progress in avoiding the worst offensive [names] and then move towards better practice" in this field of science, Anjali Goswami suggests.
Regarding Hitler's beetle, Pérez Ortega indicates, mentioning sources from the nomenclature commission, perhaps it would be convenient to change the name of the animal, if only to avoid its extermination, sorry, extinction.
