# Talk:Tiktaalik

Would I be correct in thinking that its species name rosea was derived from the fossils' pinkish colour? Vitriol 18:11, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

The press release at Reference 5 (doc) says "Instead of using the traditional Latin or Greek to name the fossil, the team consulted Nunavut residents, who suggested Tiktaalik (tic-TA-lick), the Inuktikuk word for large, shallow water fish. The second part of the name, roseae, honors an anonymous supporter. Other funding came from the National Science Foundation, National Geographic Society and the researchers’ home institutions." A few other fishy things have rosea in their names, iirc. ...dave souza, talk 08:42, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
It might be worth mentioning in the article that the anonymous supporter's first (or Christian) name was Rose, based on the use of -ae as the default Latin feminine genitive in taxonomic contexts (even when it doesn't really make sense from a grammatical point of view) as well as sources such as this one. Sure, The Economist is neither peer-reviewed nor a specialist source, but it is more than good enough to source something that is glaringly obvious from the Latin name anyway.--Leptictidium (mt) 21:11, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
Ah, so it's not a sub rosa reference then (which I guess would be rosae anyway). Arlo James Barnes 23:08, 30 June 2023 (UTC)