[Taxacom] a question of Latin ...

Thu Aug 2 12:41:47 CDT 2012

For an example of W. L. Brown's being "opinionated", a much too charitable 
term, see "The distressing case of Polyhomoa itoi Azuma, 1949 and Kyidris 
mutica Brown, 1949."  It can be downloaded free from
http://conchologia.com where it is Number 2.

dick p.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mark Wilden" <mark at mwilden.com>
To: "Michael Heads" <m.j.heads at gmail.com>
Cc: <Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
Sent: Thursday, August 02, 2012 1:14 PM
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] a question of Latin ...

>n Wed, Aug 1, 2012 at 10:22 PM, Michael Heads <m.j.heads at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> (The point was really that biologists in the 18th and 19th centuries knew
>> their Latin).
>
> Understood.
>
>> Do you have a reference for that, or a name of the source if it's a pers.
>> comm.?
>
> The remark is by W.L. Brown in Ant taxonomy. 1955. In E.L. Kessel, ed.
> A century of progress in the natural sciences, 1853-1953. pp. 569-572.
> California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco. I may have misquoted it
> slightly, but not much.
>
> I came across this article when I got the job as the AntCat developer
> at Cal Academy. Before I started working there, I started reading
> Holldobler and Wilson's Ants, where they mention that "a perceptive
> and  entertaining account of the early history of ant taxonomy has
> been written by Brown" (p. 23). It was fun to be able to just wander
> up to the library at the museum and read the original article on my
> first day of work.
>
> It's opinionated overall, but Brown really opens up a can of whoop-ass
> on the British Museum's F. Smith. Apparently, Smith was paid by the
> number of specimens cataloged - hardly a recipe for precision.
>
> A small group of prominent myrmecologists trekked to the top of a
> mountain in Borneo, consumed numerous beers, and alternately read
> aloud from this article.
>
> ///ark
>
> Mark Wilden
> Web Applications Developer
> California Academy of Sciences
> www.antcat.org
>
>
>
>>
>> Michael
>>
>> On Thu, Aug 2, 2012 at 5:08 PM, Mark WIlden <mark at mwilden.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> On Aug 1, 2012, at 9:41 PM, Michael Heads <m.j.heads at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> > . 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).
>>>
>>> Smith's work was of such low quality that one myrmecological giant said
>>> that "it would have been better if he had never seen an ant".
>>>
>>> ///ark
>>> Mark Wilden
>>> California Academy of Sciences
>>> www.antcat.org
>>>
>>>
>>> > 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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>>> >>
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > --
>>> > Wellington, New Zealand.
>>> >
>>> > My new book: *Molecular panbiogeography of the tropics. *University
>>> > of California Press, Berkeley.
>>> > _______________________________________________
>>> >
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>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Wellington, New Zealand.
>>
>> My new book: Molecular panbiogeography of the tropics. University
>> of California Press, Berkeley.
>>
>>
>>
>
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