Charles Darwin's Barnacle and David Bowie's Spider: How Scientific Names Celebrate Adventurers, Heroes, and Even a Few Scoundrels Free Audiobook Download by Stephen B. Heard, Ph.D.

If a bird has a unique name, the author's theory is that it's because humans like to give their pets and livestock names that have meaning in our culture. For example, saying that someone likes to name their birds after emojis or cartoon characters would seem nonsensical to the author. But there are exceptions: Sir David Attenborough once named a spider after the rock band Led Zeppelin. Other creatures that were given their names by humans include the Gila Monster (one of many venomous lizard species), Florida Panther, and Florida manatee. The title creature in "Icarus," which was published in 1789, was a dragonfly named Zophorua. French translation Blog Title: 5 façons

Stephen B. Heard, Ph.D. tells the fascinating story of how science names have evolved through time and what they reveal about a society's values at the time of their naming. The author covers many diverse topics including Icarus, Charles Darwin, David Bowie, and how both genders are honored with scientific names.

Charles Darwin's Barnacle and David Bowie's Spider: How Scientific Names Celebrate Adventurers, Heroes, and Even a Few Scoundrels is a book about the scientific description of animals. It starts with Charles Darwin’s barnacles and ends with David Bowie’s spider.

In his book, Dr. Stephen Heard explores the history of how scientists decided on the names that they give to plants, animals and other objects. There is a long and fascinating tradition of naming in science which has produced some remarkable results and outliers- from Darwin's barnacle, to David Bowie's spider (named in honor of rocker David Bowie)- as Heard tells us, "one scientific name can transform a dull little bug into something with personality."

The first impression of this audiobook is that it's slightly overwhelming, being 14 hours long. It's also a little strange, because the author primarily talks about how to name things that are unique and special. This could be confusing when he throws in some names like 'Brigadier General' at random.

"The word homo is thought to be an abbreviation for the Latin hominis, meaning human being. Homo sapiens was coined by Carl Linnaeus in 1758 as the species name for the human race."