There was a flurry of media excitement last week when it was announced that a prehistoric reptile had been granted a highly auspicious royal title.
The ancient land turtle was named “Basilochelys macrobios, in honour of His Majesty the King” according to The Nation. Drawing on my longstanding expertise with scientific nomenclature, I translated the royal turtle title as follows:
Basilicus (Latin)= royal/kingly
Chelys (Latin) = tortoise/turtle
Macro (Latin) = long
Bios (Greek) = life
So, as The Nation and many other sources pointed out, Basilochelys macrobios can be popularly referred to as the “Long Live the King” turtle.
The Director General of the Mineral Resources Department, Adisak Thongkaimook, helpfully pointed out that the “Long Live the King” species “roamed the Earth about 150 million years ago in the late Jurassic period”. It is now extinct.
For those interested in finding out more about Basilochelys macrobios, and who wouldn’t be, here is a more detailed scientific description:
A large cryptodiran turtle, Basilochelys macrobios n. gen. n. sp. is described from the latest Jurassic-earliest Cretaceous Phu Kradung Formation of NE Thailand, on the basis of skull, shell and other postcranial elements. Basilochelys presents a combination of primitive and derived characters. The derived characters include sculptured skull roof and shell surface; deeply embedded canalis caroticus internus; foramen posterius canalis carotici interni completely surrounded by pterygoid; neural formula of 6>4<6<6<6<6; anteroposteriorly expanded eleventh and twelfth marginal scutes extending onto the suprapygal and costal plates; narrow vertebral scutes; plastron sutured to the carapace, with large and wide anterior and posterior lobes, long and narrow bridge, very narrow axillary and inguinal notch; wide entoplastron; humeropectoral sulcus located on the posterior part of the entoplastron; anal notch absent. This taxon is placed in Trionychoidae and considered as the most basal member of that group.
I understand that this company has just received a big order from Bangkok.
6 responses so far ↓
1 michael // Jul 1, 2009 at 3:30 pm
No doubt David Icke will be very pleased!
Editor note (NSF): Readers who don’t immediately catch the reference will find this instructive.
2 Michael // Jul 1, 2009 at 10:21 pm
Thanks Nich (ed. note). To be more specific, Icke is a bit of a hoot because he has published a number of books in which he very seriously asserts that members of the British royal family are of that ilk. He even goes so far as to say that the Duke of Edinburgh & his former mother-in-law participated in satanic rituals in which they shape-shifted to show their true reptilian form & slaughtered babies! The books have not been banned & no legal action has been taken against Icke, arguably showing that the British royal family are possessed of rather more of a sense of humour & their society is somewhat healthier than some others I dare not name.
3 aiontay // Jul 2, 2009 at 1:21 pm
Maybe Icke wasn’t writing about the British royal family, but answering Question #4 in the 52 Questions.
4 jeplang // Jul 3, 2009 at 12:16 am
This is not unusual in zoological nomenclature.
Anyway,the generic name only alludes to the King.
The savvy describer of the species should have had the King’s name as second part of the binomial.Again,that is not unusual though some taxonomists consider it to be bad form.
I would used the King’s name as the specific designation….with permission from the Palace ,of course.
5 Alex // Jul 6, 2009 at 6:08 pm
“macro” comes from Greek (”makros”), not Latin.
6 Portman // Jul 7, 2009 at 11:11 pm
Alex #5
” ‘macro’ comes from Greek (”makros”), not Latin.”
Alex is right but not only does ‘macro’ come from Greek but so do ‘basilo’ (Βασιλεύς) and ‘chelys’ (χέλυς) to which Andrew also incorrectly ascribed Latin derivations – 3 out of 4 wrong!
The reptile namers presumably have stronger classical backgrounds than Andrew and did, at least, avoid the pitfall of mixing Latin with Greek.
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