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By Walt Young
sports@altoonamirror.com
Last month, the Pennsylvania Game Commission announced it's plans to spray more than 109,000 acres of state game lands to protect the forests from spongy moths. For those who may not have heard of the spongy moth, it might help to know that this invasive pest was known as the gypsy moth until March of last year.
This insect, of course, has done extensive damage to hardwood forests, particularly oaks, throughout the Northeast.
Spongy moths were first brought to Massachusetts in North America from Europe in 1869 for an experimental crossbreeding with silk moths. Some of the moths escaped soon after and quickly became a nuisance because of their caterpillars defoliating trees, with the first major outbreak occurring around 1889.
The natural spread of these insects is generally slow, and their invasion of Pennsylvania occurred during the 1970s.
When I first saw information last spring that the Game Commission would be spraying for spongy moths, I assumed this was yet another invasive species that had found a foothold here.
But upon reading the reports, I learned of the name change regarding this well-known forest pest. Obviously, I was curious about the reason for the change and what entity was the authority for making it.
Spongy moth, and the now-obsolete gypsy moth designation, are common names for an insect. Its Latin name is "Lymantria dispar." The scientific community assigns a specific and unique Latin name to every living thing because common names sometimes can be confusing or imprecise. Some plants or animals are known by several common names, or are called by one name in a certain locale and something entirely different in another region. Sometimes, completely distinct species are known by the same common names.
The Entomological Society is the largest organization in the world of professional entomologists and scientists in related disciplines and oversees the official naming of insects. ESA records show that "gypsy moth" had been used for the common name of the species since at least 1908 and probably even earlier.
In 2020, the ESA received a complaint that the term "gypsy moth" could be considered offensive to people in the Romanin community. The ESA's governing board voted in July 2021 to delist "gypsy moth" as the common name for Lymantria dispar. In a related action, they also delisted the common name "gypsy ant" for a species of ant. In March of 2022, the ESA formally adopted "spongy moth" as the new common name for Lymantria dispar in a reference to the spongy nature of the insect's egg masses.
The changing of common or Latin names is not uncommon and is usually done for scientific reasons. Even changes for sensitivity reasons aren't all that new. "Long-tailed duck" replaced "old squaw" more than 20 years ago as the common name for the sea duck with the Latin designation of "Clangula hyemalis."
In 2000, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Alaska petitioned the American Ornithologists' Union (AOU) for the name change. At first the Committee on Classification and Nomenclature of the AOU resisted the change. But this duck was already known as "long-tailed duck" in most of the English-speaking world, so the change occurred.
One of the craziest backstories behind the assignment of a common name I've ever heard is that of the so-called palomino trout, those ugly yellow color mutations of a rainbow trout that were stocked in Pennsylvania for decades.
To trace the origin of the palomino strain, we need to go back to 1955 when workers at a state fish hatchery in West Virginia noticed a single fingerling rainbow trout marked with yellow blotches. That fish was separated from the thousands of other fingerlings and within a year had grown to 14 inches and deep gold in color with a bright red stripe on its side.
It was also a female, so the hatchery personnel took about 900 eggs from the yellow trout and fertilized them with milt from regular male rainbow trout. In a few weeks, about 300 of the fingerlings that experiment produced turned a deep gold color. Further breeding experiments over the next several years produced a 90 percent success rate for the bright yellow fish the grew to good size and health and were called "West Virginia golden rainbow trout."
In 1962, a few golden rainbows were stocked in West Virginia waters. Golden rainbows were stocked statewide in 1963 to celebrate the West Virginia Centennial, calling the fish the "West Virginia Centennial trout." All the publicity generated by the West Virginia golden rainbow trout prompted folks at the Pennsylvania state trout hatchery system to ask West Virginia if they could acquire some golden rainbows for the Keystone State.
The Mountain State folks wanted to keep their golden strain for West Virginia anglers only. Finally, however, West Virginia gave Pennsylvania some fertilized golden rainbow eggs with the stipulation the West Virginia golden rainbow strain of trout would only be used for research and display and not stocked in Pennsylvania waters.
That first batch of golden rainbow eggs were hatched at Pennsylvania's Benner Spring facility near Bellefonte. When those fish matured, they were crossed with regular rainbows just like West Virginia had done with the first golden mutation years before. Continued selective breeding produced a new strain of yellow-colored trout, genetically different but similar in appearance to the West Virginia golden rainbow trout.
Pennsylvania named its genetic freak fish the "palomino trout" and began stocking them in 1967 much to the chagrin of West Virginia. The quality of the palomino trout strain gradually deteriorated over the years and the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission finally dropped it in favor of the golden rainbow.
Apparently, the feud with the West Virginia fisheries folks had run its course as well. I've never understood the fascination some anglers have with those disgusting yellow trout, especially since "regular" trout are among the most beautiful fish found in freshwater. And if you see one of them glowing on the stream bottom, remember it's a golden rainbow, not a palomino.