[Taxacom] a question of Latin ...

Thu Aug 2 03:39:55 CDT 2012

On Thu, Aug 2, 2012 at 8:39 PM, Michael Heads <m.j.heads at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Stephen,
>
> Yes, my mistake on that one - Prolasius advena it is. Still, your original
> question was 'is there such an epithet as advenus' and there are plenty. As
> Christian pointed out, this is not classical Latin, but it wouldn't be the
> first time in biology (e.g. all the hectori's in New Zealand). I don't
> really see the point in going around 'correcting' things like this (the
> Prolasius case is different), you just end up with two names in circulation
> instead of one.
>
> By the way, can a botanist tell me what the 'official' name of
> Asteraceae/Compositae these days? I'd just come around to using Asteraceae,
> but now they seem to have changed it back again. Are Fabaceae, Brassicaceae
> also going back to the old style?
>
> Michael
>
> On Thu, Aug 2, 2012 at 8:19 PM, Stephen Thorpe <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz
> > wrote:
>
>> Actually Michael, your argument falls apart a little at the seams, it
>> seems! Fred Smith didn't name Prolasius advenus, see:
>> http://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Formica_advena
>> he named Formica advena, which later got placed in Prolasius. Most of the
>> subsequent literature refers to Prolasius advena, but some recent papers
>> refer to Prolasius advenus ...
>>
>> Cheers, Stephen
>>
>>   *From:* Michael Heads <m.j.heads at gmail.com>
>> *To:* Stephen Thorpe <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>
>> *Cc:* Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
>> *Sent:* Thursday, 2 August 2012 4:41 PM
>>
>> *Subject:* Re: [Taxacom] a question of Latin ...
>>
>>  Hi Stephen,
>>
>> It wasn't just because of that - as I mentioned, Lewis and Short's
>> dictionary (the standard reference for later Latin) cite the adjectival
>> usage.
>>
>> For interest, in modern times, one of the giants of botany,
>> Baillon, wrote a great deal of Latin and made the combination Pterocarpus
>> advenus. The famous Yale professor Othniel Marsh described the well-known
>> fossil bird Baptornis advenus and the perissodactyl Amynodon advenus.
>> Frederick Smith (British Museum, President of the Royal Entomological
>> Society, Darwin correspondent etc.) named Prolasius advenus and Cabro
>> advenus. (He was the first entomologist to publish descriptions of more
>> than a hundred ant species that still hold validity). Amos Eaton (who
>> taught James Dwight Dana, Asa Gray, John Torrey etc.) named the fly
>> Telmatoscopus advenus. Vernon Kellogg, professor of entomology at Stanford
>> for 26 years (he taught the scientist president Herbert Hoover) named the
>> louse Rallicola adventus. Baron Karl-Robert von Osten-Sacken was the
>> Russian consul general in New York in the American civil war, and is also
>> known as an entomologist (he introduced the trem chaetotaxy); he named the
>> tephritid Torymus advenus. Alcide d'Orbigny, the well-known student of
>> Cuvier, named the foram Cibicides advenus.
>>
>> Michael
>>
>> On Thu, Aug 2, 2012 at 3:27 PM, Stephen Thorpe <
>> stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz> wrote:
>>
>>  well, just because you can find binomials which use advenus doesn't
>> mean that they are correct -  it could be a common mistake ...
>>
>> Brown (1956) Composition of Scientific Words makes no reference to anyadjectival advenus ...
>>
>> Stephen
>>
>>   *From:* Michael Heads <m.j.heads at gmail.com>
>> *To:* Curtis Clark <lists at curtisclark.org>
>> *Cc:* Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
>> *Sent:* Thursday, 2 August 2012 2:46 PM
>> *Subject:* Re: [Taxacom] a question of Latin ...
>>
>> Hi Stephen and Curtis,
>>
>> It seems to be a bit more complicated than that. In classical Latin
>> 'advena' was used mainly (only?) as a noun in apposition. It's also used
>> this way in many binomials (e.g. the beetle Ahasverus advena).
>>
>> But in a great many binomials it has been used as an adjective - a quick
>> Google search revealed genera with masculine names in plants, Coleoptera,
>> Diptera, Hymenoptera, Homoptera, Phthiraptera, fishes, birds and mammals
>> that include species named 'advenus'. Lewis and Short (still the standard
>> reference for later Latin) lists 'advena' as both a noun and an adjective.
>>
>> So, no need to change all the names with advenus.
>> Michael Heads
>> On Thu, Aug 2, 2012 at 12:27 PM, Curtis Clark <lists at curtisclark.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>> > On 8/1/2012 4:56 PM, Stephen Thorpe wrote:
>> > > Does anyone know if the specific epithet advena is unchangeable when
>> the
>> > gender of the genus changes? In other words, is there such an epithet as
>> > advenus?
>> >
>> > It's a noun in apposition, so it would always be advena. The
>> > corresponding adjective seems to be adventicius.
>> >
>> > --
>> > Curtis Clark        http://www.csupomona.edu/~jcclark
>> > After 2012-01-02:
>> > Biological Sciences                  +1 909 869 4140
>> > Cal Poly Pomona, Pomona CA 91768
>> >
>> >
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>>
>>
>> --
>> Wellington, New Zealand.
>>
>> My new book: *Molecular panbiogeography of the tropics. *University
>> of California Press, Berkeley.
>>
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>> The Taxacom archive going back to 1992 may be searched with either of
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>>
>> (1) by visiting http://taxacom.markmail.org/
>>
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>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Wellington, New Zealand.
>>
>>  My new book: *Molecular panbiogeography of the tropics. *University
>> of California Press, Berkeley.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Wellington, New Zealand.
>
> My new book: *Molecular panbiogeography of the tropics. *University
> of California Press, Berkeley.
>
>
>
>

-- 
Wellington, New Zealand.

My new book: *Molecular panbiogeography of the tropics. *University
of California Press, Berkeley.