Taxonomy and Naming
The Barnacle Goose was first classified taxonomically by Johann Matthäus Bechstein in 1803. Its specific epithet is from the Ancient Greek leuko- "white", and opsis "faced".
In English, the term "barnacle" originally referred only to this species of goose and only later to the crustacean barnacles. It is sometimes claimed that the word comes from a Celtic word for "limpet", but the sense-history seems to go in the opposite direction.
Read more about this topic: Barnacle Goose
Famous quotes containing the word naming:
“The night is itself sleep
And what goes on in it, the naming of the wind,
Our notes to each other, always repeated, always the same.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)