Name a worm if you want to have eternal reputation

Jeff Goodhartz lives alone and has no children. But he wanted his name to continue to circulate after his death. So he spent $ 5,000 to name a newly discovered worm: 'goodhartzorum'.

'This makes me happy', said the 55-year-old math teacher at high school. The animal of the same name as him has a translucent color, adorned with bright blue tufts. 'My surname will exist in nature'.

The worm will swim in Belize mangrove, where someone has discovered it.

Goodhartz buys naming rights from Scripps Institution of Oceanography. The Institute has implemented a species naming program since the beginning of this year. The new idea for this classification is also a way to raise money for scientific research. In fact, many groups have participated.

But its growing popularity has sparked debate around the question of whether this incident will lead to false discoveries and will lead to the omission of undiscovered species.

Andrew Polaszek, an entomologist at the Museum of Natural History in London, said: 'Maybe someone will invent a new species to make some money if it is profitable.'

Jeff Goodhartz holds a photo of the newly discovered Belize Featherworm in the Granite Hills High School science classroom (El Cajon, California), where he currently teaches, on Wednesday, June 4, 2008. (Photo : AP / Sandy Huffaker)

The classification of species is among the oldest in the world, since the time when Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus lived in the 18th century. He popularized the classification system still in use. nowadays. Of the 30 million species of animals, plants and microorganisms on Earth, only about 1.8 million species have been discovered and named so far.

Usually, the discoverer of the new creature will name it. All living creatures have a two-part scientific name, usually in Latin. People with merits of discovery tend to name new species by their name, or the names of their partners, children, co-workers, benefactors or even celebrities.

In recent years, species names have shifted from the hands of name discoverers to auctioning or selling to research volunteers who are running out of funds. Not all species are the same. The rarer, more evolved creatures have higher prices.

Doug Yanega, a entomologist at the University of California, Riverside, suggested having a foreign exchange bank take over the task of reviewing and announcing the list of animal names. Currently, the nicknames of species are scattered in scientific journals, some names gain more attention than others.

Efforts to classify species are happening globally, but tend to categorize existing names as well as their often voluntary implementation. Census of Marine Life program specializing in marine animals. Last week there were 122,500 names of marine species confirmed so far along with 56,400 nicknames - other names were given to the same species over the years.

Yanega did not object to reputable scientists selling naming rights to raise funds for their research, but he feared that those who did not have the heart would consider this a earning scheme.

Yanega said: 'The ability to abuse this is too great. Moreover, it is too easy to turn around and exploit the system. '

Most researchers think that fake species names rarely occur, but if they are profitable, everything can change.

The International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature has published regulations on the names of animals. According to Ellinor Michel - head of the committee, the agency has no opinion on the issue.

At Scripps, before a species is released for sale, researchers will test the facility in scientific journals as well as conduct DNA tests to make sure it is unique.

Scripps, Greg Rouse, said: 'We will not offer a species unless we are absolutely certain that it has never been named before.' His name was given to a feather-duster Australian (Pseudofabriciola rousei) by a colleague.

Rouse is also the person who discovered the Goodhartz worm. He found it in a mangroves living underwater while swimming with a snorkel off the coast of Belize two years ago. It is not only a new species but also a member of the Belize featherworm family.

Although it will be called goodhartzorum, Rouse will still be the one to decide the species name.

Among the successful conservation groups sponsoring species names is the Biopat non-profit group of Germany. They have raised $ 700,000 since 1999 for studies of biodiversity by selling more than 100 species of names from frogs to beetles or spiders.

Some online auctions have made the right to name species become a hot event.

In 2005, the Wildlife Conservation Society raised $ 650,000 for a new monkey species in Bolivia. It is named after the highest bidder, GoldenPalace.com internet casino, famous for its strange buying and selling missions including a sandwich of grilled cheese with a Virgin Mary on one half of the cake according to the owner's pledge.

The scientific name of the monkey is Callicebus aureipalatii, which in Latin means 'Golden Palace' but it is commonly known as 'GoldenPalace.com Monkey'.

Last year the Florida Museum of Natural History earned $ 40,800 from an anonymous person through a strange butterfly in Mexico. It was named after a lost Ohio mother whose three sons fought in the Second World War.

Zoologist Jon Norenburg of Smithsonia's National Museum of Natural History does not object to the purchase of species names because the classification has become meaningless, buying and selling species names also falls on that path. But he warned that a preferred buyer name might not be scientifically accepted.

He said: 'Volunteers need to be aware that their names may not be accepted. This is like financial investment. You will need to ask the question: What are the issues that need to be taken into account?

In addition to the Belize featherworm worm, Scripps has also sold a $ 5,000 featherworm Australian worm to a woman who plans to name it after her husband as a souvenir, or a $ 10,000 insect for a production group. Nokia mobile phone.

A spokesman for Jackie Evory said the company held a naming contest and turned the name into Latin, which coincidentally became its "Connecting People" slogan .

With $ 15,000, your name will be placed on this slug.(Photo: ABC)

There is also a $ 15,000 nudibranch, a pair of bone-eating worms costing $ 25,000 each and a live worm in a rare $ 50,000 hydrothermal vents. Volunteers will receive a framed photo of the same name with them as well as a copy of the scientific article about the creature.

Goodhartz - a teacher in the suburbs of San Diego, never set foot in tropical rainforests or dived in dangerous waters to search for undiscovered creatures.

But he turned to immortality in science and understood that there would surely be people who disagreed with his purchases.

He said: 'I don't have it like a scientist. But if this can help Scripps, what's bad? '