#1: Murph — 04/14  at  10:40 AM
Embarasses the hell out of me that they're a Canadian company. I hope enough people pick this up and make noise about it that maybe they get a little embarassed instead, but based on the cheese sandwich, that isn't too likely.

D

#2: — 04/14  at  10:53 AM
I think I'm going to be sick...

At least tell me that the "dot" is spelled out (i.e. "d-o-t") for:

Golden Palace Dotcom Mondkey (emphasis on "Dot").

#3: — 04/14  at  10:55 AM
Mondkey Monkey

#4: Aydin — 04/14  at  11:13 AM
Hey, but look where the money going to: Madidi National Park in Bolivia. That ain't too bad.

#5: — 04/14  at  12:00 PM
And now they've got more monkeys than sense or taste, too.

#6: Reed A. Cartwright — 04/14  at  12:24 PM
I was hoping for Google Monkey.

#7: — 04/14  at  01:07 PM
I'm for right here, right now, coming up with a name for this beautiful little critter that we on the web will use instead of this nonsense. Get a couple of reasonably well known Biologists calling it something else and we can toss GoldenPalace.com in the trashcan, at least in popular usage.

If we don't nip this in the bud, we might soon have a Preparation H Beetle, a Bank 1 Bird, or a Met Life Squirrel.

Wait! Come to think of it, maybe we COULD find corporate sponsors for endangered species. Hell, they rename everything else. The Purina Pupfish et al.

#8: — 04/14  at  01:16 PM
What right does anyone have to sell the *common name* of anything? Aren't common names just conventional usage, with almost complete flexibility through time? I'm pretty sure if people just decide to drop the ".com" when referring to the monkey, then it will just be a Golden Palace monkey. So what's the Latin name going to be? That might stick around a little bit longer, not that many people will notice if it has "dotcom" embedded within in it.

#9: — 04/14  at  06:15 PM
Offshore casinos are prohibited from advertising in the U.S., so GoldenPalace.com does these outrageous things just to get their name in the paper. They could care less what they actually buy for their money, what they're actually buying is publicity.

#10: — 04/14  at  06:20 PM
I can't believe they passed up the opportunity to call the monkey Spank.

#11: decrepitoldfool — 04/14  at  08:45 PM
I love to visit Vegas - it's just an entertaining environment and lots of wonderful (and amazingly low-price) restaurants. But once I put a dollar in a slot machine and didn't win. It was not the high point of my visit.

Anyway I was walking across the main gambling floor of MGM Grand (You always have to go through the gambling floors to get to the restaurants) and wishing for a Segway the damn thing was so big, and noticed there was a lion habitat over in one corner of the room. A lion habitat with live lions. On the top of the building is the world's most powerful spotlight that simply shines straight up all the time. (Once it was loaned to NYC for a WTC memorial).

Caesar's Palace has an indoor Roman marketplace (full of pricey contemporary shops) with cobblestone streets, beautiful marble Romanesque sculpture and fountains, and an artificial sky that changes to simulate real sunset. All shopping malls should be so pleasant.

How does it not occur to all the marks that they are paying for all that opulance?

#12: — 04/14  at  10:27 PM
This isn't really a big deal, for one thing its name isn't "GoldenPalace.com monkey" anyway, it's Callicebus aureipalatii. The Scientific name is the only name that matters. Even still, common names aren't that permanent and tend to evolve with the language, the ".com" will most certainly get droped eventually. We realy need to pick our battles, all that really matters here is that $650,000 has gone to good use in managing wildlife and perserving their habitat. Well worth it in my opinion.

#13: — 04/14  at  11:11 PM
Thanks, Christopher!



I had been under the impression that the ".com" would be part of the scientific name; you're right on about the negligibility of the folk scientific label.

And, even though some scientists have> taken liberty to provide some "creative" (i.e. non-scientific) names (e.g. Orsonwelles, Hunkydora, Ichabodcraniosaurus, and Schizogenius), it's good to hear that we've kept the advertisers (and punctuation marks) out of the Scientific Archive...

...Well, at least for now.

#14: — 04/15  at  06:46 AM
Three slime-mold beetles were named after Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld:

http://weblog.physorg.com/news1596.html

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