A group of marine scientists want their colleagues to stop calling Ziphius cavirostris by the name Cuvier’s beaked whale.
The push is part of a wider attempt by some researchers to replace problematic species names. In the case of Z. cavirostris, the problem is Georges Cuvier, a French biologist who died in the 19th century.
“Many modern scientists may not be familiar with Cuvier’s role in creating and disseminating scientific racism and how his racist beliefs were foundational in his research practices and theories,” say Andrew Read of Duke University Marine Laboratory in the US, and his colleagues in a recent paper in the journal Marine Mammal Science.
Some taxonomists have even argued that the entire practice of naming species after people should be left in the past.
It is not only people’s names that can be problematic though. Read and colleagues’ paper came out just before botanists had voted to change over 200 plant names that contain a racial slur. Seabird names have previously come under similar scrutiny, with Hawaiian species being given native names in place of colonial-era impositions. And two years ago, US authorities stopped calling highly invasive fish species “Asian carp” as they considered the name xenophobic.