A common name for Ichneumonidae?
One important reason why many insect groups go unknown and unappreciated, both among the general public and professional scientists, is a lack of a common name. Most people are much more comfortable using a simple, familiar name, either one that is already part of a given language (e.g. bees, ants, wasps) or a descriptive combination of words (e.g. orchid bee, bullet ant, paper wasp).
When available, even entomologists will usually use the common name over a Latin derivative. For example, I have yet to hear any entomologist refer to an ant as a formicid, despite knowing that Formicidae is the scientific family name. This is because it is simply much more comfortable for an English speaker to say ants instead of formicids.
In addition to a litany of other issues, including the massive diversity and a dearth of identification resources, one of the factors holding back public knowledge and appreciation of ichneumonids is the lack of a clear and widely used common name. Older names are all derivatives of the scientific name and include: ichneumons, ichneumon wasps, ichneumonid wasps, ichneumon-flies (as in the “Ichneumon-Flies of America North of Mexico” series by Henry Townes), and simply ichneumonids. The latter is used in scientific writing since cutting off the -ae suffix is the conventional way to refer to a specific animal instead of the family as a whole.
The problems resulting from a lack of a common name for ichneumonids or Ichneumonoidea, the superfamily that includes both Ichneumonidae and Braconidae, have been appreciated for some decades. An old newsletter for ichneumonoid researchers discussed the issue some decades ago but could not come to a happy consensus. Recently, though, a group of professional ichneumonologists decided that the common name for Ichneumonidae should be “Darwin wasps” and have been trying to popularize it. While I applaud their effort to make ichneumonids more widely known, I strongly disagree with their use of “Darwin wasps”.
The main reason the authors suggest the new name is a well-known quote from Charles Darwin to his American botanist confidant, Asa Gray, about how he thought that the gruesome feeding strategy of ichneumonids was incongruent with idea of a beneficent God:
I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent Got would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars(…)
(Darwin, 1860)
Besides the above quote, Darwin didn’t seem to have any particular interest in ichneumonids, and I doubt he mentions them in any of his many published works. (As an aside, I wonder how much more painful or distressing it is for an insect to be eaten from the inside or being eaten by a predator.) Klopfstein et al. also justify the new name by noting that ichneumonids spectacularly diverse and the numerous species and various adaptations they exhibit make for an exellent group to study evolution. I fully agree with their latter point, but by not means does that imply a connection with Darwin.
Overall, the case for “Darwin wasps” is rather weak and is an attempt to garner more interest in ichneumonids (and therefore research funding) by associating them with a famous and beloved scientific figure. This is especially apparent when comparing “Darwin wasps” to other vernacular names that use Darwin’s namesake. The most obvious example is Darwin’s Finches, which although Darwin did not appreciate the great opportunity to study evolution that the Galapagos finches provided at the time he visited the islands and collected specimens, the significance of them was latter made known to him. In addition to collecting specimens, he also briefly discussed the Galapagos finches in On the Origin of Species. There are also Darwin’s Rhea and Darwin’s frog, both of which were collected by Darwin himself. There are also about 250 other species and some genera named after him, which likely bear no relationship to Darwin other than to honor him. Honorific names for species are entirely fine, but trying to do so for the vernacular name of an entire family is another matter.
Besides the lack of any substantial connection with Darwin and it being rather awkward to say with the two repeated syllables that start with W, the other problem with the new name is that it ignores an obvious and much more meaningful common name for ichneumonids: tracker wasps. As I mentioned above, when there isn’t a vernacular common name already available, the obvious choice is to add an adjective that describes the morphology or biology of the group in question. Spider wasps, driver ants, spider beetles, ect. This naturally leads people who have never heard of some group to become curious about it.
For ichneumonids, the ability to track hosts might be the most significant aspect of their biology. It is not only extremely impressive, but the evolution of being able to track different hosts is clearly one of the factors contributing to their high diversity. A description of morphology or biology is most relevant to people who have never heard of ichneumonids before. As I mentioned above, tacking on the adjective “tracker” naturally leads people who have never heard of ichneumonids to become curious about their biology. What exactly are they tracking?
Overall, “tracker wasp” is a much more suitable common name for Ichneumonidae or simply. . . ichneumonid.