[Taxacom] Gender of the genus name Xymmer

[Doug Yanega]

>Dear all,
>
>  I would like to ask you if someone can guess the gender of the 
>following genus name: Xymmer.
>
>  Xymmer is an ant genus name.
>This genus was described by Santschi (1914) as a monotypic subgenus, 
>and Stigmatomma (Xymmer) muticum was designated as the type species.
>Unfortunately, the author did not provide any etymology for this name.
>This subgenus was synonymized with the genus Amblyopone, and former 
>S. muticum is called as Amblyopone mutica now.
>I would like to resurrect Xymmer as a genus from synonymy, however, 
>I could not find the correct spelling of the type species, either 
>Xymmer muticus, mutica, or muticum.
>I would be grateful if some of you could give me some suggestions. 
>Do you know if it is derived from any old greek word? Or do you 
>think it might refer to something else, such as a person's or 
>locality name?

"Xymmer" is an arbitrary combination of letters, an anagram for 
"Myrmex". It is masculine, by default, unless the author specified 
otherwise. Thus, were it to be used as a genus name, the combination 
would be "Xymmer muticus (Santschi, 1914)".

Peace,
-- 

Doug Yanega        Dept. of Entomology         Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0314        skype: dyanega
phone: (951) 827-4315 (standard disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
              http://cache.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html
   "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
         is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82