In his fascinating, engagingly written book, Stephen Hurd recounts the surprising, highly instructive, and sometimes scandalous stories behind taxonomic nomenclature. From the very moment when in the 18th century. Carl Linnaeus's binomial system of scientific names was adopted; scientists often assigned species of animals and plants the names of those whom they wanted to glorify or discredit. Some scientists resolved their ideological differences by exchanging unpleasant names, while others gave flowers or beautiful jellyfish the names of their secret lovers. Thanks to these names, we preserve the memory of little-known ascetic scientists, travelers and simply brave people, without whom many discoveries in biology would have been impossible. Scientific names can tell us a lot about both those to whom they are dedicated and their authors - their worldview, passions and weaknesses.