Lists of named, famous, or important subjects/individuals and some facts about them

Ok, so given this semi-random list of 10 animals that I would like to investigate some more, there are, of course particularly famous, almost iconic animal subjects involved in the research. I am not sure about crows or pigeons, but so far, there are some very famous individuals that I think are interesting in that they stand as symbols of their species and attain a level of fame and individualism that begins to set them apart or indicates being treated much more as a human rather than a more "expendable" animal. It's actually really interesting when you look at the wikipedia articles dedicated to these animals too and the way that they differ in the format of the article. It seems like it almost indicates a hierarchy . . . Because someone like Kanzi has a side bar that says date of birth and relatives (see below), while Washoe has no side-bar box, but has a photo of her researcher giving her eulogy. Even to eulogize such a creature is sort of amazing. Meanwhile, the dolphin Akeakamai has a sort of biological taxonomy box rather. I could just be coincidence, but it's interesting to see that there might be some difficulty in classifying these outstanding animals.

Anyway, here are some notable examples of each of these animals that I have found so far.

1. great apes / monkeys
   
   • Kanzi Bonobo - don't know how his name was chosen. Still alive.
   • Koko Gorilla - her name is short for "Hanabiko" which, in Japanese, means "fireworks child" because she was born on the 4th of July. Still alive. Note also in this article that it talks about her keeping pets (which is "not unique" but interesting with her, and also that she (or the lab, rather) was sued for sexual harassment because she insisted upon some female workers showing her their breasts and the researcher encouraged them to do so. That's a whole different thing, I guess. But kind of amazing.
   • Washoe Chimpanzee - named for the county in Nevada where she was raised. She was 42 when she died.
   • Nim Chimpsky Obvious. He died at 26 from a heart attack.
2. dolphins / whales
   
   • Akeakamai name in Hawaiian means "science" or "lover of wisdom" ("ake" = love, "akamai" = widsom). Died of cancer in 2003.
3. rats
4. pigs
5. crows / ravens (corvids)
   
   • Betty whose name I don't think means anything at all. Though I don't know.
6. parrots
   
   • Alex African Grey Parrot. Name stands for Avian Language EXperiment (or Learning Experiment) Died at 31 from artherosclerosis.
7. dogs
   
   • Rico is a Border Collie shown to know almost 250 different words
8. elephants
   
   • Kosik Not much info on him yet.
   • Batyr Name is name is a Turkic word meaning The Dashing Equestrian, The Man of Courage or The Athlete. Basically the saddest story I have ever heard - He lived in a zoo in Kazakhstan, died because his zookeepers accidentally gave him an overdose of drugs, and he never saw or heard another elephant in his entire life ("He died in 1993 having never seen or heard another elephant.") (The claimed he could speak vocally using his trunk to make noises). On the upside, his mama's name was Palm. And that is loveliest name I have ever heard.
   • Happy, which almost sounds like a joke given the sad elephant before, but Happy might actually be Happy, and was one of three elephants tested using a mirror.
9. octopus (octopi?)
10. pigeons

Naming is vital here. Some of these things were called "projects" . . . like "Project Nim" and "Project Washoe" which has that X-files kind of ring to it. Or very scienc-y, detached. The naming of ALEX is that way too, even though in her book, Irene Pepperberg I think admits (or at least in that Moth story she does) that she had a very close personal relationship to ALEX as well. And then there are those like Koko - "fireworks child" which is so lovely and sweet and humane.


To me, there is an enormously interesting distinction between using their names and their species name. And it makes me wonder how I should title those "portraits" or series of paintings. I could name the pieces like portraits of the invidial animals, with their real name, or their life span, or maybe just as their species name. What a difference that simple distinction would make. Both are accurate names for the animals, given to them by us, but that makes a huge difference. Can I do a series of both - copies perhaps or prints? that are simply named differently. But the same animal or image? How can I accomplish this so that the real question of the artwork isn't what is there in the image necessarily, but is in the naming, the language, which to me is kind of what this whole thing is about?