inatungulates

[inatungulates]

Sichuan sika Cervus nippon sichuanicus

Observed by roylesafaris, CC BY-NC

[inatungulates]

East African highland bush duiker Sylvicapra grimmia altivallis

Observed by stevewhitemk81, CC BY-NC

[inatungulates]

Southern mountain reedbuck Redunca fulvorufula

Observed by altagray, CC BY-NC

[inatungulates]

Atlantic harbor porpoise Phocoena phocoena phocoena

Observed by tostra97, CC BY-NC

[inatungulates]

Haviside's dolphin Cephalorhynchus heavisidii

Observed by chrisearley, CC BY-NC

On the name of Cephalorhynchus heavisidii (and on Whales of the World)

The following account is reported in various sources on marine mammalogy, but I will quote directly from a rather fascinating volume (Watson, 1981 - more on this book later), which provides good detail on the story. Watson says:

"In 1828 the Conservator of the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, William Clift, received several cetaceans for the museum and recorded for a specimen from the Cape of Good Hope that it came from the collection of Captain Heaviside, a prominent naval surgeon whose personal accumulation of anatomical material had been sold at auction earlier that year. [British zoologist John Edward] Gray illustrated the specimen in his Spicilega Zoologica of 1828 and named it Delphinus heavisidii. In fact there are no cetaceans in Heaviside's collection and the dolphin skin and skull came back to England in the hands of a Captain Haviside, an employee of the British East India Company, who carried the extensive Villet collections from the Cape in 1827. The error in attribution was eventually discovered, but the original spelling must stand."

The comment that "the original spelling must stand" is true of the scientific name, but not necessarily of the common name - a fact not lost on Watson, as in the quoted volume he chooses to propose new common names for all cetaceans named for people. Rather than the standard Heaviside's dolphin, which perpetuates the error in attribution, Watson calls this the Benguela dolphin, after the cold Benguela Current that flows through its native waters off Southern Africa. It's a rather nice and fitting name, but - like most of the alternative names offered in the book - it failed to achieve wider use.

As should be apparent, I also break from convention in the common name of this dolphin. Rather than the more-heterodox Benguela dolphin, I opt instead for a simple correction: deleting the initial "e" and using Haviside's dolphin, preserving the general intent behind the name while changing attribution to the original collector. While this is not widely used in marine mammalogy sources, it does appear online occasionally; perhaps it will gain more acceptance with time, or perhaps I am being as hopeful and singular as Watson with regards to common names.

...And speaking Watson, the book from which I have quoted above is Whales of the World: A Complete Guide To the World's Living Whales, Dolphins and Porpoises, written by Lyall Watson and illustrated by Tom Ritchie. It was published in 1981 with a few versions (as far as I can tell from the copyright page, these were reprintings rather than new editions proper); I have the paperback version printed in 1988. Good-quality used copies can be had from online booksellers at little cost, and I heartily recommend the book. Functionally, it is a field guide, though a few factors make it feel rather unlike most books of that type: the newly-proposed common names are used persistently throughout; Ritchie's illustrations are bold, somewhat stylized, and sometimes a bit fanciful; the book abounds with Watson and Ritchie's own personal observations; often-lengthy passages on the early history of each species' taxonomy (like that quoted above) accompany all species accounts; and a slightly odd taxonomy and species-numbering scheme is used throughout. It should be noted that I personally do not find any of those to be bad things, and a few other aspects of the book are surely wonderful tools for a field guide type book: tables comparing key characters for field ID at a glance; "wet" and "dry" flow chart keys for identifying species on the basis of both live/freshly-dead and skeletal specimens; illustrations showing surfacing-and-diving sequences and similar species in dorsal view as if viewed from a boat. All in all, I think it is an often-useful and always-interesting source for anyone interested in cetaceans.

Ref:

Watson, L. 1981. Whales of the World: A Complete Guide To the World's Living Whales, Dolphins and Porpoises (T. Ritchie, illustrator). Hutchinson.

[inatungulates]

Cape rock hyrax Procavia capensis capensis

Observed by obsgi, CC BY-NC

[inatungulates]

African bush elephant Loxodonta africana

Observed by darren_j_obbard, CC BY

[inatungulates]

Cape buffalo Syncerus caffer

Observed by m107791, CC BY-NC

[inatungulates]

Blesbok Damaliscus pygargus phillipsi

Observed by petermcintyre, CC BY-NC

[inatungulates]

Aoudad Ammotragus lervia

Observed by a-tristis, CC BY-NC

[inatungulates]

Chobe bushbuck Tragelaphus sylvaticus ornatus

Observed by oecophylla, public domain

[inatungulates]

Common impala Aepyceros melampus

With red-billed oxpecker Buphagus erythrorhynchus

Observed by tomfeild, CC BY-NC

[inatungulates]

Fringe-eared oryx Oryx callotis

Observed by galewski, CC BY-NC

[inatungulates]

Russian saiga Saiga tatarica tatarica

Observed by marinasemenyak, CC BY-NC

[inatungulates]

Eastern North Pacific short-beaked common dolphin Delphinus delphis

Observed by coreyhusic, CC BY-NC

[inatungulates]

Common hippopotamus Hippopotamus amphibius

With Egyptian goose Alopochen aegyptiaca

Observed by jkadry, CC BY-NC

[inatungulates]

Dugong Dugong dugon

Observed by wildlobster, CC BY-NC