Ever wondered how different people’s surnames end up as part of
the scientific names given to plants and animals? It is
considered very bad form to name a new species that you describe
after yourself, but someone else might do it for you as a mark
of respect. That is what happened to nineteenth century
botanical collector and draughtsman to the Colonial Museum and
Geological Survey, John Buchanan FLS (1819-1898).
Unsurprisingly, given the energetic botanical collecting he
engaged in as soon as he arrived in New Zealand from Scotland in
1852, most of the species that bear John Buchanan’s name are
plants. But there is also a predatory sea snail, Antimelatoma
buchanani described by Frederick Wollaston Hutton in 1873. Over
eighty examples of this marine snail, gathered from Deep Water
Cove to Queen Charlotte Sound, are in the mollusc collection at
Te Papa. When Hutton described the features of this new species,
he was working as assistant geologist to James Hector in the
Geological Survey Department in Wellington