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Leigh Greenwood, director of the forest health program at The Nature Conservancy and a member of the working group, said the new name “has really good historical and social precedent.”
Growing up outside of New York City, Miss Greenwood has often seen spongy moths, hairy caterpillars, and porous egg masses plastered on trees. In North America, the moth is an invasive species that can strip leaves of trees and shrubs, sometimes causing tree death or an increased risk of wildfire. “It looks enormous and is very expensive to deal with,” said Ms. Greenwood.
It is no easy task to update the name of the trust wherever it is used. “Websites, notices, pesticide labels; both federal, state and international regulations,” said Mrs. Greenwood. “It’s going to cost a lot of real money and time, and it’s important and worth it.”
For this reason, the Better Common Names Project is a guide change to the new name and set March 2023 as an encouraged date for full admission.
According to Joe Rominiecki, the association’s director of communications, the project has received input on other potentially problematic names since last summer and plans to make a list of the next names they will replace by the summer. One possibility that the entomological community is discussing is insects that are considered pests. geographic locationssaid Mr Rominiecki.
Miss Greenwood gave the Japanese beetle as an example. “They’re trying to destroy it, they’re trying to prevent it, and the language used in these control efforts can be extremely, openly xenophobic,” he said.
Ms Greenwood said other biological groups, such as genes and plants, do not have a formal structure governing common nouns. In his eyes, the project is “a great example of a community-based process that can indeed lead to plants and animals that don’t have a body with a name.”
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