[Taxacom] Fwd: New species of the future

Wed Oct 30 02:28:53 CDT 2013

I'm not using the precedents as the justification. I just cited them for
interest. The Code is clear. -colus is an adjective (latinised, not Latin)
and it agrees with the gender of the genus (Eupolybothrus, Parus etc.).

On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 8:19 PM, Stephen Thorpe
<stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>wrote:

> Hi Michael,
>
> The number of "precedents" is tiny compared to the total number of -cola
> names! When does a few errors become a "precedent"?? If errors are repeated
> often enogh, do they become right?? Two wrongs don't make a right, but
> maybe 20 do???? I admit the situation isn't entirely clear, but my
> interpretation of Art. 31.2 is very firmly that it is an error which is to
> be corrected.
>
> Cheers, Stephen
>
>   *From:* Michael Heads <m.j.heads at gmail.com>
> *To:* taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> *Sent:* Wednesday, 30 October 2013 8:06 PM
> *Subject:* [Taxacom] Fwd: New species of the future
>
> Stephen,
>
> No, I think Gary is correct. The -us ending here is a 'latinised'
> (neolatin) adjective, not classical Latin. There are plenty of precedents,
> e.g. Caprimulgus monticolus Franklin 1831, Parus monticolus Vigors 1831,
> Sorex monticolus Merriam 1890, Neusticomys monticolus Anthony 1921, Ellipes
> monticolus Günther 1977, Bicyclus sylvicolus Condamine 1961, Molophilus
> sylvicolus Alexander 1924 (New Zealand tipulid), Leptotyphlops sylvicolus
> Broadley & Wallach 1997. It's a modern error in terms of classical Latin,
> as Robert Mill pointed out, but in zoology it's not to be corrected.
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 4:27 PM, Stephen Thorpe
> <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>wrote:
>
> > Not so fast! If your neo-Latin digression is, as you say "not relevant",
> > then your argument is this:
> >
> >  In ancient Latin, -cola was a noun suffix; the adjectival form was
> > -colaris (e.g., agricolaris)...Article 31.2 applies to adjectives, not
> > suffixes and "-colus" is not a Latin adjective under the Code. Article
> 31.2
> > is still relevant however-- "Cavernicolus" is a latinized adjective,
> since
> > the authors gave it an adjectival definition, and used the ending "-us".
> If
> > it is later combined with a feminine genus, it should become
> "cavernicola".
> > The authors could also have named the species "Eupolybothrus
> cavernicola",
> > which would have made the name invariant, but the Code does not require
> > this.
> >
> > This suggests that the spelling should be corrected to cavernicolaris,
> > this being the correct adjectival form of the species epithet for the
> > masculine gender. I dispute that just sticking an -us on the end makes it
> > masculine, any more than rosenbergus would be a "latinized adjective".
> > Unless it is emended to cavernicolaris, it cannot be said that there is
> > gender agreement with the original genus, as required by Art. 31.2
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Stephen
> >
> > From: "Rosenberg,Gary" <rosenberg.ansp at drexel.edu>
> > To: "taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu" <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
> > Sent: Wednesday, 30 October 2013 4:00 PM
> > Subject: Re: [Taxacom] New species of the future
> >
> >
> > Eupolybothrus cavernicolus is correctly formed under the zoological Code.
> > In ancient Latin, -cola was a noun suffix; the adjectival form was
> -colaris
> > (e.g., agricolaris). In neo-Latin (e.g., Brown, Composition of Scientific
> > Words) -cola can be an adjectival suffix, with standard endings (-us, -a,
> > -um). The Code (glossary) defines Latin as ancient and mediaeval Latin,
> so
> > the neo-Latin usage is not relevant. Article 31.2 applies to adjectives,
> > not suffixes and "-colus" is not a Latin adjective under the Code.
> Article
> > 31.2 is still relevant however-- "Cavernicolus" is a latinized adjective,
> > since the authors gave it an adjectival definition, and used the ending
> > "-us". If it is later combined with a feminine genus, it should become
> > "cavernicola". The authors could also have named the species
> "Eupolybothrus
> > cavernicola", which would have made the name invariant, but the Code does
> > not require this.
> >
> > By the way, Jeff Nekola and I described the snail Vertigo marciae earlier
> > this year, reporting Recent and fossil specimens, with a phylogenetic
> > placement based on DNA sequences.
> >
> http://sev.lternet.edu/~jnekola/nekola%20pdf/naut-127-107-114.pdf.Whatotherinstances
> are there like this?
>
> >
> > Gary Rosenberg
> > Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia
> > Drexel University
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu [mailto:
> > taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Stephen Thorpe
> > Sent: Tuesday, October 29, 2013 9:46 PM
> > To: Doug Yanega
> > Cc: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> > Subject: Re: [Taxacom] New species of the future
> >
> > Just to be absolutely clear:
> >  31.2. Agreement in gender. A species-group name, if it is or ends in a
> > Latin or latinized adjective or participle in the nominative singular,
> must
> > agree in gender with the generic name with which it is at any time
> combined.
> >
> > My understanding (which may be wrong) is that if, as Doug seems to, you
> > think cavernicolus was intended to be adjectival in this case, then the
> > correct adjectival forms relative to gender are cavernicola (masculine),
> > cavernicola (neuter) and cavernicola (feminine). Art 31.2 would therefore
> > appear to require correction of cavernicolus, in this case, to
> cavernicola,
> > even in the original combination ('at any time combined').
> >
> > The alternative interpretation would be to claim that although
> cavernicola
> > is almost always used as a noun in apposition (why??), it can also be
> used
> > as an adjective with "standard" -us, -um, or -a suffixes. But I see no
> > evidence for this!
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Stephen
> >
> > From: Doug Yanega <dyanega at ucr.edu>
> > To: Stephen Thorpe <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>
> > Cc: "taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu" <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
> > Sent: Wednesday, 30 October 2013 1:01 PM
> > Subject: Re: [Taxacom] New species of the future
> >
> >
> >
> > On 10/29/13 4:14 PM, Stephen Thorpe wrote:
> >
> > On the other hand, although incorrect latinization is not a problem per
> > se, gender disagreement might be, even for an original combination? Since
> > cavernicola is gender invariant, it should be spelled cavernicola in
> > combination with any generic name, including Eupolybothrus.
> > Nope. Original spelling can't be overruled for this, because
> > "cavernicolus" cannot be assumed to be a noun; the authors' comments
> > apparently indicate it is an adjectivized form. If the original
> combination
> > had used "cavernicola" instead, in the absence of any statements from the
> > author(s), THEN it would be invariant.
> >
> > 32.3. Preservation of correct original spelling. The correct original
> > spelling of a name is to be preserved unaltered, except where it is
> > mandatory to change the suffix or the gender ending under Article 34 (for
> > treatment of emendations and incorrect subsequent spellings see Articles
> > 32.5, 33.2, 33.3, 33.4)
> > >What 32.3 refers to here (explicitly) is Article 34, which defines what
> > happens when a species is moved into a different genus (or rank). This
> does
> > not refer to changing the spelling while it is still in its original
> genus,
> > though that is (very occasionally) necessary, when authors don't do their
> > homework and are mistaken about the gender of the genus in which they are
> > naming taxa.
> >
> > This is why we need an exhaustive registry of names; it should not be
> > required for every taxonomist to be a Latin scholar. You should be able
> to
> > simply look up any given genus in a list, and see what gender it is, who
> > the author was, what its type species is, what the originally included
> taxa
> > were, etc., and likewise look up any given species in a list, and see
> > whether it is a noun or an adjective, what its type depository is, what
> the
> > type locality is, who the author was, etc. Once ONE person has recorded
> > these parameters, there needs to be a mechanism by which the record is
> > SHARED (at which point it would be reviewed for accuracy), and once
> > reviewed, it would be archived publicly into perpetuity, instead of
> forcing
> > each taxonomist from now until the end of time to do the same detective
> > work over and over again. To some extent, this function is part of the
> > Lists of Accepted Names (LANs) presently built into the Code (Article
> 79),
> > but the mechanism is
> >  FAR too cumbersome to be practical given the scope of what is needed.
> > What we want, ideally, is for the LANs to contain every name ever
> > published, but the way Article 79 is now written, that is not possible. A
> > resource like ZooBank might serve this purpose, but (as noted in the
> other
> > unwieldy thread) having redundant lists is wasteful, and ZooBank does not
> > represent a definitive Commission-sanctioned list, as the LANs do.
> >
> > Peace,
> >
> > --
> > Doug Yanega      Dept. of Entomology      Entomology Research Museum
> > Univ. of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0314    skype: dyanega
> > phone: (951) 827-4315 (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
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> >
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>
> --
> Dunedin, New Zealand.
>
> My recent books:
>
> *Molecular panbiogeography of the tropics.* 2012.* *University of
> California Press, Berkeley.
>
> *Biogeography of Australasia:  A molecular analysis*. Available January
>
> 2014. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
>
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> Celebrating 26 years of Taxacom in 2013.
>
>
>

-- 
Dunedin, New Zealand.

My recent books:

*Molecular panbiogeography of the tropics.* 2012.* *University of
California Press, Berkeley.

*Biogeography of Australasia:  A molecular analysis*. Available January
2014. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.