[Taxacom] Zzyzx, was: Re: [HERBARIA] HERBARIA Digest, Vol 104, Issue 10

[Doug Yanega]

Michael Ohl wrote:

>The author did not indicate the etymology of the genus name, but at 
>least my US colleagues assume that it is an onomatopoetic name, 
>imitating the buzzing sound of a flying wasp of this genus. This is 
>apparently only the case with an anglophonic pronounciation, but not 
>for my German tongue. However, it is still the most likely 
>hypothesis for the origin and meaning of that name.

At the risk of prolonging this...

I have been to Zzyzx Road on several occasions (it is adjacent to a 
field station west of the Kelso Dunes), and have seen specimens of 
the wasp. The explanation I was given for the place name was that it 
was desired to make it the absolute last entry in any gazetteer, and 
the snail genus "Zyzzyxdonta" was explicitly named in order to make 
it the very last genus name in any catalog or index. One would 
suspect, therefore, that Pate's intention was similar. At the time he 
coined the name, it WAS the last genus name - until Zyzzyxdonta was 
named in1976. Unfortunately for both authors, it turns out that there 
was already a genus "Zyzzyzus" (a hydroid) whose name had gone 
unrecognized since 1921, with it being incorrectly recorded in the 
literature as "Zyzzygus". Thus, it now holds the last place in the 
Nomenclator Zoologicus.

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