How to describe a new species.

1. Make certain that it is really new.
a. Examine all published work on related organisms. Determine the genus of the new species. If it is different enough, may even erect a new genus.

b. Check with other scientists working on this group; one of the taxonomists may already have a manuscript pending

2. Write a careful description that includes illustrations and/or photographs, collection data, locality information, and ascribe a new name that is not occupied already by any other species.

3. Choose the name carefully so that there is no violation of the codes--check published lists of names.

4. The name chosen should:
a. Ideally, describe a characteristic feature and point out the origin and significance of the name.
1). Roncador, a genus of croaker fish--erected by David Starr Jordan on the basis of this fish emitting low, sustained grunts that sound similar to a snoring person. Name derived from the Latin word meaning snorer.
2). Xanthichthys lineopunctatus, a red-tailed triggerfish--xanth meaning "yellow": icthys meaning "fish"; lineo meaning "line" or "row"; and punctatus meaning "spots" or "dots".
3). Sometimes, old common names were used, as in Mytilus edulis, the bay mussel, from the Greek mytilos, meaning "sea mussel" and edulis, meaning "edible."
4). Glaucus, a genus of pelagic nudibranchs (snails without shells), spends its life in the upper layers of the open ocean whereas most of the other genera of nudibranchs live in fairly shallow waters, crawling or creeping alng the bottom. Glaucus was a mythical Greek sponge diver who was doomed by the gods to live beneath the sea after eating a magic seaweed that a sea nymph had offered to him (thus, he was exiled away and set apart from his fellow divers, just as this pelagic nudibranch is set apart from the other nudibranchs).

b. Sometimes named for behavior--Naucrates ductor, a pilot fish, from naukratas meaning "master of a ship," and ductor, meaning "a leader".

c. Oftentimes commemorative.
1). Sio, a genus of deep-sea fishes, was named in honor of Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
2). Scopelenges whoi was named in honor of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.
3). Honoree should be someone who has contributed to the study of the group, such as Tarletonbeania, a genus of lantern fishes, was named by David Starr Jordan in honor of his colleague, Tarleton H. Bean.

5. Native locality, usually by adding -ensis (meaning belonging to) to the geographical name of the site of the original collection.
a). Apogon guadalupensis, a cardinal fish, was first collected at Guadalupe Island but has since been collected at San Clemente Island and in the Gulf of California (where it is the most common).

b). Canthigaster amboinensis, a puffer fish, was first collected at Amboina, Indonesia, and has since been collected all over the Indo-Pacific area.

6. Pure devilment--a taxonomist working with the mollusk Abra (meaning soft, delicate), succumbed to temptation and named a new species cadabra.