this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2023
101 points (88.5% liked)
science
14878 readers
83 users here now
A community to post scientific articles, news, and civil discussion.
rule #1: be kind
<--- rules currently under construction, see current pinned post.
2024-11-11
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
It's part of a broader movement to rename birds to be more descriptive. "McCow's longspur" is both unmemorable and nondescriptive, "thick-billed longspur" puts one of its distinguishing features in the name.
The fact there's a lot of racists who had birds named after them hundreds of years ago is just one more thing to add to the pile. The names would benefit from being changed even if they were all saints.