high-level taxonomy (was re: masc. genitive honorific epithets)

[Curtis Clark]

At 09:13 AM 12/6/95 -0500, Robin Panza wrote:
>This is getting rather strange-sounding.  First Timothy seems to imply that
>Xantusia is a hummingbird (it's a genus of lizard), then Dan replies that
>hummingbirds are plants.  C'mon folks, are we losing sight of the forest for
>the trees (or the kingdoms for the i's)?

It was I, not Dan Nicolson, who replied that hummingbirds were plants, based
on Tim's suggestion that a generic name for a hummingbird would be correct
under the International Code for Botanical Nomenclature.  I figured if
Volvox can be an animal, maybe hummingbirds are really plants.  Now I've
learned that Xantusia is a lizard.  Lizards are animals, right?  So that
would be the ICZN?  It's all so confusing!  I think I can't see the forest
because all the trees got up and flew away.

(Note--the paragraph above is intended as irony, as was my previous post.)

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