How should zoos decide what common name to sign an animal as?

Frankly I don't think "African Wild Dog" is a good descriptive name, in addition to the negative connotations it gives. Lots of canids in Africa are "wild dogs" or "hunting dogs"; meanwhile, no other canid I know of (African or otherwise) has anything like that distinctive coat patterning. Its Latin name pictus roughly means "painted" also.
 
birdsandbats said:
Regarding Lycaon pictus, I only remember ever seeing "African Wild Dog" or "African Hunting Dog" as a kid, but every zoo I've been to with them has called them "African Painted Dogs". I personally prefer "painted dogs".
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I’ve also heard “Painted Wolf” and even “Painted Hound”, which bungle up the other half of the name.
African Painted Dogs: the Cougars/Pumas/Mountain Lions of wild canids.
 
Aardwolf said:
"Jackass" penguin is most commonly used for African penguin, but it's also used for the other Spheniscus species.

Overall, there are no set rules, and a lot of what a zoo calls its animals come down to institutional preference. There's also regional preferences, especially for native species, such as seen in panther/puma/cougar. AZA or the TAGs aren't going to weigh in; I'm studbook keeper for a species that goes by more than one common name and I have zoos in my program which use both.

Overall, the trend seems to be going more for geographic names over "discover" names (i.e., Vietnam pheasant instead of Edward's pheasant), indigenous names over western names (I've been seeing milu more often as opposed to Pere David's deer), and dropping names that are potentially offensive (recent move to change "Hottentot teal" to "blue-billed teal" - I support the dropping of the old name due to racist connotations, but am not crazy about the new one, since there are a lot of ducks with blue bills, so I don't consider it very descriptive).

I feel like Lycaon pictus, the preferred new common name still has a ways to catch on. I understand the marketing and logic behind the new name, but everyone I know still calls them wild dogs, or AWD for short. When I was younger I always heard them referred to as Cape hunting dogs.
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What places sign them as Milu? I've never seen that, always Pere David's.

I prefer AWD but I'm fine with APD. I'd rather have the public thinking they're scary animals, vs something they want to get and keep as pets. I mostly see them signed as AWD.
 
Regionality will have an influence for example whether a facility labels Rhinella marina as Marine Toad or Cane Toad will depend on where the facility is and if they want to tell the story of invasiveness they may be more likely to call it a Cane Toad. Same thing with Puma concolor. Zoos on the east coast will likely label them as Cougars and Florida Panthers where zoos in the West will call them Mountain Lions.

Zoos will often default to the name their accrediting body uses or the SSP/TAG. Different data management software like ZIMS will default to a common name most commonly used or accepted and there isn't a great way to change it in the software if you are used to using a different name so zoos will sometimes use whatever the software uses to make it easier for employees to use the same name that the public sees. I've seen zoos go against this though if there is a reason to use the other name for example, Short-tailed Python is often used instead of Blood Python for P. curtus, breinteini, and brongersmai because it is less frightening for guests.
 
Echobeast said:
Regionality will have an influence for example whether a facility labels Rhinella marina as Marine Toad or Cane Toad will depend on where the facility is and if they want to tell the story of invasiveness they may be more likely to call it a Cane Toad. Same thing with Puma concolor. Zoos on the east coast will likely label them as Cougars and Florida Panthers where zoos in the West will call them Mountain Lions.

Zoos will often default to the name their accrediting body uses or the SSP/TAG. Different data management software like ZIMS will default to a common name most commonly used or accepted and there isn't a great way to change it in the software if you are used to using a different name so zoos will sometimes use whatever the software uses to make it easier for employees to use the same name that the public sees. I've seen zoos go against this though if there is a reason to use the other name for example, Short-tailed Python is often used instead of Blood Python for P. curtus, breinteini, and brongersmai because it is less frightening for guests.
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For the python, I've always seen blood, never short-tailed.

I went through the photos I have of Puma concolor signs and it's a pretty even split between cougar and mountain lion, 11-10. No Florida panther outside FL, and no puma (though it's occasionally mentioned in the details of a sign). These are mostly in the northeast region.

COUGAR
Animal Adventure Park, NY
Claws N Paws, PA
Columbus Zoo, OH
Elmwood Park, PA
Nashville Zoo, TN
Maine Wildlife Park, ME
Natural Bridge Zoo, VA (but also have a sign saying “Mountain Lions are also known as Cougars or Pumas”)
Plumpton Park Zoo, MD
Popcorn Park, NJ
Stone Zoo, MA
Turtle Back Zoo, NJ

MOUNTAIN LION
Bergen County Zoo, NJ
Cincinnati Zoo, OH
Cohanzick Zoo, NJ
Ecotarium, MA (says Mountain Lion – Puma – Puma concolor)
Fort Worth Zoo, TX
Hovatter’s, WV
Squam Lakes, NH
West Virginia State Wildlife Center, WV
Wild Animal Park, NY
ZooAmerica, PA
 
Pretty much no one, except perhaps for zoologists sometimes, in the US and I think Canada will refer to a Puma concolor as a “puma”. Which is in stark contrast with Latin America, as they are almost always called pumas there. As far as I can tell, they’re usually called pumas by people in countries outside their native range, too.
 
evilmonkey239 said:
Pretty much no one, except perhaps for zoologists sometimes, in the US and I think Canada will refer to a Puma concolor as a “puma”. Which is in stark contrast with Latin America, as they are almost always called pumas there. As far as I can tell, they’re usually called pumas by people in countries outside their native range, too.
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Yeah, the dominant names seem to be Cougar in the east, Mountain Lion in the west, and Puma in Latin America.
 
evilmonkey239 said:
Pretty much no one, except perhaps for zoologists sometimes, in the US and I think Canada will refer to a Puma concolor as a “puma”. Which is in stark contrast with Latin America, as they are almost always called pumas there. As far as I can tell, they’re usually called pumas by people in countries outside their native range, too.
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I'd imagine that everywhere outside US and Canada calls them puma.
 
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