Etymologies of Australian reptiles

Australia, covering almost 7.7 million km2 (3 million mi2), is a mega-biodiverse region with 19 recognised families, 164 genera, six subgenera, 1152 species, and 60 subspecies of reptiles. This study resolves the etymologies of their scientific names (nomina). Most generic and subgeneric names (69%) are derived from Greek, while half (50%) of species and subspecies originate from Latin. Greek-derived names are more often composites than Latin-derived ones. We identified 344 eponyms (named after people) (13 genera, 311 species, and 20 subspecies) and 199 toponyms (named after places) (nine genera, 182 species, and eight subspecies). Nearly all species eponyms use the Latin genitive case. Men are overwhelmingly honoured in eponyms (90%). More than half (55%) commemorate individuals involved in a taxon’s discovery, while 32% honour fellow herpetologists. Among the species toponyms, 57% used place names adjectivally, about half of these with the suffix -ensis. Of those using place names as nouns, 29% are unmodified, 22% derive from unmodified First Nation words, and 28% use the genitive form of locality names. Comparatively few taxa were named after other sources, including Indigenous languages (40), mythological figures (27), ships (five), astronomical features (five), and companies (two). This study also examines names with uncertain etymologies and proposes plausible hypotheses about their origins. Although reptile taxonomy in Australia has involved many contributors, the 10 most prolific authors coined more than half of all taxon names, demonstrating their disproportionate influence on the nomenclature of Australia’s reptiles.