Inspirations and curiosities of zoological nomenclature

Abstract

The paper deals with non standard inspirations and curiosities in zoological nomenclature. Review of the information on etymology of the zoological scientific names is presented including names related to morphology, ethology or habitat of described taxons. Also information about animals named after people (scientists, politicians, painters, actors, musicians) and animals named after fiction characters (from mythology, literature, movies or cartoons) is presented. The linguistic inspirations in taxonomy are described.