Question on Taxonomy

[Zenmaster6]

Hi,
I have looked through the internet and couldn't find information on this and thought maybe someone passing through could give me and quick answer.

Why things share similar words in latin when sometimes they are not related at all.

For example
Dickin(Sonia) ( a flat Ediacaran animal ) 
Dick(Sonia)  ( a tree fern )
Cook(Sonia) ( one of the first vascular plants )

These are three different species that share not too much. (aside from everything is connected)

Or another example is:

Archaeo(therium) ( a boar like predator in the Miocene )

Kayenta(therium) ( a semi-aquatic rodentoid from early Jurassic)

Mega(therium) ( a huge land sloth from early Pliocene )

Balochi(therium) ( huge hornless rhino from oligocene)

However like the Therium family above, this simply means mammal or marsupial.
Sonia contains animals and plants. And unlike Therium
I still have no explanation for Sonia. If anyone knows, please let me know.

 

 

[Zenmaster6]

I realized the people who discovered it all have something in common.
A last name that ends with son. Johnson, Cookson, Dickinson, Dickson, lynnson. 
They add an "ia" to the end and get cooksonia, dicksonia.

This might just be a theory but let me know.

[gigantoraptor]

When someone describes a new animal, they have to choose a name (according to certain rules). Most of the time, these names come from Latin or ancient Greek language. Similarities in genera names don't have anything to do with taxonomic relations. They are just a name in the system. 

Similarities in family names, order names ... don't have anything to do with taxonomic relations. They are just names. Someone called Nick is not neceserraly related to a person called Rick.

Branchiosaurus is not related to Brachiosaurus.

Dryosaurus is not related to Dyrosaurus.

Basilosaurus is not related to any other -'saurus'.

The latin or greek names are just a translation to a characteristic of the specimen like location (Argentinosaurus), discoverer (Dickinsonia), appearance characteristic ( Spinosaurus , Spine-reptile) and so on.

 

Hope this helps a bit.

[jdp]

Some fossils are named after people who weren't the discover but who are being honored for long-term contributions to the field, or for various other reasons. How a specific fossil was named can be found in the etymology section of a scientific paper.

[jpc]

Sonia, indeed, is a latinization of names ending in son, which are very common.  And it is my sister's name, but she is unrelated to all thee animals.  

 

Therium actually means "Beast" in Greek, not mammal.  Whereas Theria is a subgroup of mammals which includes (as you noticed) both marsupials and placentals.  Theria includes all the living mammals except the egg laying echidnas and platypus.  Theria also includes a lot of fossil mammals.  

 

Have a look at this stuff here and maybe you will get some additional insight into ylur question.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commonly_used_taxonomic_affixes

[siteseer]

On 3/7/2019 at 8:58 PM, Zenmaster6 said:

Hi,
I have looked through the internet and couldn't find information on this and thought maybe someone passing through could give me and quick answer.

Why things share similar words in latin when sometimes they are not related at all.

For example
Dickin(Sonia) ( a flat Ediacaran animal ) 
Dick(Sonia)  ( a tree fern )
Cook(Sonia) ( one of the first vascular plants )

These are three different species that share not too much. (aside from everything is connected)

Or another example is:

Archaeo(therium) ( a boar like predator in the Miocene )

Kayenta(therium) ( a semi-aquatic rodentoid from early Jurassic)

Mega(therium) ( a huge land sloth from early Pliocene )

Balochi(therium) ( huge hornless rhino from oligocene)

However like the Therium family above, this simply means mammal or marsupial.
Sonia contains animals and plants. And unlike Therium
I still have no explanation for Sonia. If anyone knows, please let me know.

 

 

 

Kayentatherium wasn't really like a rodent.  It belonged to a group of therapsids (and among the last of that group) that were relatives of the earliest mammals.  Rodents apparently diverged from a common ancestor with the group that includes rabbits sometime in the early Paleocene.

 

 

[Zenmaster6]

Just now, siteseer said:

 

Kayentatherium wasn't really like a rodent.  It belonged to a group of therapsids (and among the last of that group) that were relatives of the earliest mammals.  Rodents apparently diverged from a common ancestor with the group that includes rabbits sometime in the early Paleocene.

 

 

Yeah, I said Rodentoid as in it looked "like" a rodent. The same way how people might say stereotypical green aliens are "Humanoid" Without being related to any descendant

[siteseer]

30 minutes ago, Zenmaster6 said:

Yeah, I said Rodentoid as in it looked "like" a rodent. The same way how people might say stereotypical green aliens are "Humanoid" Without being related to any descendant

 

 

I figured that's what you meant but just wanted to clarify that to any newbies because mainstream publications often refer to Mesozoic mammals and their early relatives as rat-like or rodent-like without an extra sentence that they were not only not rodents but not even close to being related to rodents nor anything living today.  Most Mesozoic mammals have no modern or even Cenozoic descendants. 

[Zenmaster6]

38 minutes ago, siteseer said:

 

 

I figured that's what you meant but just wanted to clarify that to any newbies because mainstream publications often refer to Mesozoic mammals and their early relatives as rat-like or rodent-like without an extra sentence that they were not only not rodents but not even close to being related to rodents nor anything living today.  Most Mesozoic mammals have no modern or even Cenozoic descendants. 

Right. I usually forget about that. Thanks for clarifying