Taxonomist’s conundrum: What to do when a species needs a new name, but the moniker available is unpleasant? Case in point: this verdant beauty is surely the loveliest of the Bahamas’ lizards. Long known as A. carolinensis, recent work demonstrated that Bahamian green anoles and American green anoles are not closely related and thus represent independent colonizations from their Cuban, A. porcatus, ancestors. Hence, unless one wants to sink them all into a single species (which by the rules of zoological nomenclature, would be given the name A. carolinensis, thus sinking porcatus and representing another instance of U.S. hegemony over Cuba), the Bahamian lizards need a new name.
And, alas, that name already exists, and it’s a stinker: A. smaragdinus. Trying saying it yourself. There are a number of different ways to pronounce it—I have no idea which is correct, but they’re all unpleasant. And don’t bother trying to shorten it: “smarags” is cacophonous as well. It’s a shame, really, because the epithet is apt, meaning “emerald green” in Latin.
