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Saturday, November 16, 2019

What's in a name?

I'm a curious person. I like facts and like learning new ones. I'm interested in how things acquire their names and the reasons for them.

The fact that someone recently informed me that the town of Baldock gets its name as a derivation from the Old French name for Baghdad: Baldac, gave me immense satisfaction. I mean who knew?!
Well obviously lots of people, but I didn't.

So over the last couple of weeks I've been trying to put names to the remaining beetle samples that I still have in the fridge and also a box of carded ones that I failed to name at the time.

This staph I collected from Wicken Fen last year, was one of the latter. I can't remember why I couldn't identify it at the time, especially as it is a male, but when I took another look it keyed easily to Lathrobium geminum. The aedagus was a match to the drawings too. So one down and quite a few still to go.


I then started wondering why the specific name was geminum. Geminum is latin for twin or double.

When I looked closely at the aedagus I found a possible answer, a pair of ridges with accompanying pits on the median lobe.


Could this be the 'double' this species is named for? I've no idea but I like to think so.

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