Q: (Paraphrased): So what is it; _Mustela furo_ or _Mustela putorius furo_?
   I don't want to give the Ca Ca Fish and Gestapo any ammunition.
 
A: Well, if you accidentally gave them any ammunition, they would only use
it to shoot themselves in the foot. That is, if they could evey figure out
to load the gun.
 
Zoological nomenclature is determined by an international committee.
Basically, once a species has been described, it remains with the first name
given to it, unless someone else comes along and demonstrates the species is
something else, or more closely related to some different group.  At that
point a petition is make to the international committee on zoological
nomenclature, and the committee accepts or rejects it.  Membership can vote
on the issue.  Sometimes a revision or discription is made through some
other publication, and no formal application is made to the committee, but
it accepted as legitimate none-the-less.  Under any system, rules of
priority preserve the first name given to the animal.
 
The ferret and the European polecat were first described by Linneaus in
1758.  On page 46 of "Mammalia Ferae," the European polecat is assigned the
name _Mustela putorius_ (entry 6), and the ferret is given the name _Mustela
furo_ (entry 7).  This was first published in "Systema Naturae: Regnum
Animale" in 1758.  When the chromosomal evidence came in during the late
1970s and early 1980s, it was decided the two were the same species, and
because the polecat was named first, the ferret would take that name due to
the rules of priority.  Because it was a domesticed version of the polecat,
it would be given the subspecies name of _furo_; hence the designation
_Mustela putorius furo_.
 
In and of itself,this would be the end of it.  Except for several problems.
First, the practice is not administered equally because no guidelines exist
to deal with domesticated animals.  During the same time when the ancestor
of the ferret was being determined, the ancestors of several species, such
as the dog and cat, were discovered, yet they continued to maintain the
"incorrect" name.  For example, the dog is _Canis familiaris_, but is in
fact a domesticated wolf, _Canis lupis_.  If the rule was applied to dogs
the same as ferrets, they would be _Canis lupis familiaris_.
 
Secondly, while the chromosomal studies appear to be convincing, they are in
fact not studies of the genetic structure, but rather on the number and
external morphology of the chromosomes.  This is only circumstantial
evidence, which is somewhat refuted by studies of the cranium and teeth,
which show the ferret to be more closely related to the steppe polecat
rather than the European polecat.  That is not to say genetic studies are
fruitless; its just that the study of the karyotypes gives different results
than the study of the genome.  For example, there are more than 6 billion
people with the same karyotype (excluding those with genetic defects which
alter the number, shape, and type of chromosomes.) However, each person in
that populations has a unique genome (excluding identical twins, although
some of them are unique as well).
 
What happened with the ferret is comparative studies were made on the
possible ancestors of the ferret, and the only one with a comparable
karyotype was the European polecat.  The problem is, there could be a
closely related animal that went extinct as the ferret was domesticated, as
in the horse and the camel.  Or, it could have been domesticated from the
steppe polecat, but during the domestication process, the karyotype was
altered to superfically match the European polecat.
 
However, this ignores the basic problem of what to do with domesticated
animals.  Many different ideas have been offered, from lumping them with the
original species, to giving them their own position.  Whatever the ultimate
decision, it should be applied to all domesticates equally, regardless of
current standing.  My opinion is domestication alters the gene frequencies
of an animal, much like natural selection, so domestication is a speciation
event and domesticates are new species.
 
Currently, there is a movement within the committee to return the original
Linnean names to all domesticated species.  Part is to reduce confusion, and
part because domesticated species are seen to be different from the wild
counterpart.  It is very likely that the committee, having been forced to
address this issue by crazed anthropologists determined to have a separate
species name to reflect human-mediated evolutionary processes, will agree,
and the binomial will offically become _Mustela furo_ again.
 
Remember, not all scientists currently agree with the binominal as it now
stands, and regularly use _Mustela furo_ in their publications. These tend
to be Old World scientists mostly, and seems to be a habit of mustelid
experts. Plently of New World scientists agree; just run the subject
"mustela furo" on medline, current contents, or any number of other
scientific bibliographic services, and you will find numerous current
entries.
 
The bottom line is that technically, the accepted binominal is _M.  p.
furo_.  But if you use _M.  furo_, as I suggest, you have placed yourself
within the company of many brillant scientists, including Caroline King and
Juliet Clutton-Brock.  Ask the CaCa Fish and Gestapo to explain that.  Or,
if you really want to stick it to them, ask them to explain the difference
between synchronic and diachronic species concepts, and if they include
themselves among the Suidae.
 
Hell, they are so dumb they think a genome is a type of mythical dwarf.
They think DNA is the person who prosecutes ferret owners.
 
Mo' Bob C and the Genome 18 (In memory of Gus)
[Posted in FML issue 1837]