The scientific names of Ris' odonate taxa
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Beschreibung
Scientific names are indispensable in taxonomy for labeling organisms unmistakably.
For this purpose even an arbitrary combination of letters is admissible, provided that it is
euphonious. But authors normally want to give additional information by their names, which
may among others concern morphology, colour, pattern, size, similarities, behaviour, places,
biotopes, or, when dedicated to persons, may refer to the history of entomology. And
certainly it is worth-while to understand what an author had in mind when naming a
taxon. Nowadays the etymology of a scientific name normally is explained when it is published.
But that was not customary in former times, and certainly does not apply to Friedrich
Ris (1867-1931), who was one of the most significant odonatologists of his age and
wrote “the largest taxonomic text ever published on Odonata” (Corbet 1991: 28). He is author
of more than 300 scientific names for dragonflies. These shall be dealt with in this treatise.
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