[Taxacom] Help with Iberian, Canarian Spanish

[Michael A. Ivie]

Dear Taxacomers,

I would like to request assistance from anyone whose native tougne is 
Spanish.  I as trying to determine and explain the gender of a 
zoological generic name.  The name Verodes.

My analysis to date is:

Article 30 (ICZN 1999) governs the determination of gender for 
generic-groups names.  Our search of standard Latin and Greek 
dictionaries indicates that /Verodes/ belongs to neither language, 
making the name fall under Art. 30.2. Casey did not provide a derivation 
nor any hint of his intentions on the derivation or gender of this name, 
rendering Art. 30.2.2 inoperative.  Because Casey failed to intimate his 
intentions for the gender of the name by the endings of the species 
names included (he simply lists /Nosoderma inaequalis/ as the type 
species, never actually using the species epithet in combination with 
/Verodes/), Art. 30.2.3 is equally useless in this case.  However, 
"verodes" is the plural form of a noun in Canarian and Iberian Spanish 
that refers to the clumps of plants that grow between the tiles of 
roofs.  Thus, under Art. 30.2.1 ("If a name reproduces exactly a noun 
having a gender in a European language ... it takes the gender of that 
noun."), /Verodes/ takes the gender of that noun, which is masculine.


I cannot find Verodes in my Spanish-English dictionaries, which are 
Latin American in focus.  Possibly, my problem is that I do not know the 
singular form of verodes.  Can someone please:

1. Confirm that "verodes" is the plural form of a noun in Canarian and 
Iberian Spanish that refers to the clumps of plants that grow between 
the tiles of roofs.

2. Tell me the singular form of the noun.

Thank you,

Michael

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Michael A. Ivie, Ph.D., F.R.E.S.

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