Why do so many creatures not have normal names, even though they have scientific ones?

Question

Why do so many creatures not have normal names, even though they have scientific ones?

Answer 1

the phila (family) names and common names system was sit up a long time past. the object was to avoid any confusion over the subject matter.

Answer 2

The scientific name IS the normal one. Common names are confusing. Sometimes the same organism has several common names. The woodpecker I refer to as a flicker (specifically, the yellow-shafted flicker) has something like 50 different common names. Conversely, the same common name can be used for more than one creature. When someone on Y!A asks about the danger of being bitten by a garter snake, I have to qualify my answer. The snake called "garter snake" in North America is non-venomous; the one in Africa is venomous. You could get in a lot of trouble relying on common names.

That is not to say that scientific names are etched in stone. However, the problems are usually only for people specializing in the particular group. I was co-author of an extremely boring paper about the ramifications of one particular book being published a few months before another. It affected dozens of scientific names.

If you have trouble, stick to the names you know, like chrysanthemum, gorilla, alligator, and rhinoceros. Oh, wait. Those are the scientific names of the genera to which those organisms belong.

Answer 3

The scientific name defines a species. Often the common name is just something like "spider". There are hundreds or even thousands of species of spider, but to most people they are just "a spider" so there was never any common name for each different species.

Answer 4

Most of the critters that don't have common names are ones that it takes a fair amount of scientific knowledge just to distinguish them from other critters.  So anyone who recognizes the critter is more likely to use the scientific name than the common name anyhow.

Plus, when you start getting down into the large numbers of insects, it's pretty easy to start running out of common names.  So you get "common" names like the "lesser green ash-leaf cone-roller", to distinguish it from the "greater green ash-leaf cone-roller" or the "lesser white ash-leaf cone-roller" or the "lesser green poplar-leaf cone roller".  

Then comes the question of whether the lesser green ash-leaf cone-roller is called that because the insect is green, or because it attacks green ash.  

Then there's the problem of what happens when you find out there's an even smaller species of cone roller that attacks green ash.  Do you call it the "really lesser green ash-leaf cone-roller"?

It's so much easier to just call it Caloptilia fraxinella.

Answer 5

Because the creature was only recently discovered by science, or it is one of many different species known by the same common name.

Answer 6

When you say "normal names" do you mean "common names?"

All animals that have been classified have a scientific name. Many animals that have been classified have one or more common names, for example the mountain lion which is also known as cougar or puma, among others. (See link.)

Can you give some examples of animals that have scientific but not common names? I have to admit I can't think of any offhand.