For reasons I won’t explain, I’ve been looking up pictures of tits on the internet (not that kind).

Now... lots of them have descriptive names. For example, this is a fire-capped tit.

This makes sense to me because it looks like his face is on fire.

This is a yellow-browed tit. Note the yellow brows.

This is a white-bellied tit. You can easily spot these because of their... white bellies.

This is a white-backed tit. You guessed it, you can spot these because of their white backs.

Imagine you’re a Russian explorer, naturalist and ornithologist in 1873. You look like this and your name is Nikolai.

If you were a tit you might be called ‘bespectacled tit’ or ‘bearded tit’.

Except not the latter because actually there is already a bird called this (though it’s actually a reedling and just looks similar to a long-tailed tit). But note that it looks like it has a beard...

You’re writing your book, ‘Vertical and Horizontal Distribution of Turkestan Wildlife’ in which you offer the first description of a number of animals.

There was a wild sheep (later named after you) and also the spotted great rosefinch.

An apt name because it’s rose coloured and spotted.

Anyway, you also offer the first description of this tit.

This is almost certainly the most beautiful bird I’ve ever seen.

Look at this glamour shot.

The genus name of this bird ‘Leptoporcile’ comes from Greek ‘leptos’ meaning ‘slender’ or ‘delicate’.

The specific epithet ‘sophiae’ comes from the name ‘Sophia’ perhaps in homage to Sophia the tzarina of Russia during Severtzov’s lifetime.

Or, perhaps more likely and definitely more romantically, it refers to Severtzov’s wife Sofia who was also on expedition with him in 1865-66 and collected plants, insects and sketched.

So what, you may ask, is this beautiful rainbow coloured bird commonly called?

Is it the rainbow tit?

No.

Instead it’s known as the ‘white-browed tit’ because of its ‘distinctive white brows’.

WTH???

What is wrong with people???

OBVIOUSLY it should be called the rainbow tit. It looks like it’s rolled in a rainbow or flown through a rainbow run.