Taxacom: Gender agreement in Lepidoptera

Tue Jan 25 12:29:12 CST 2022

To John & those of you who are interested in the issue of gender 
agreement in Lepidoptera, here is a recent article on the subject (which 
advocates NOT to apply gender agreement in Lepidoptera):

https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdoi.org%2F10.3897%2Fnl.42.34187&data=04%7C01%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7C86b2f57d320f49f8655d08d9e0309750%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C637787322923148014%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=x5k%2FawHyjyVXAG1ZOMoGSAz%2F7HxFYw1vYSSlr17rQ3c%3D&reserved=0 (open access)

Best wishes, Martin

Am 25.01.2022 um 18:51 schrieb John Grehan via Taxacom:
> In general I can't say whether it's laziness or stupidity (although perhaps
> both apply to me :). But in Lepidoptera there has been an
> apparent widespread (if not total) consensus not to look for gender
> agreement. What I have heard (including from a linguist) is that some
> generic names are of unknown gender while others are ambiguous. So I guess
> with these problems in mind, many (most? all?) lepidopterists have chosen
> stability over a linguist requirement that cannot always be met. In my case
> I am clueless about Latin so it would be a minefield. But in 2000 the
> lepidopterists Ebbe Schmidt Nielsen, Gaden Robertsnon, and David Wagner
> generated a global list of Hepialidae for which gender agreement, for
> species reallocated to different genera from the original, was not followed
> or attempted. A new World list of Hepialidae (in press) also follows this
> same practice. My view is that this is just a case of an arbitrary  choice
> - either one prefers to follow gender agreement (even if this is not always
> an obvious determination) as in the current code, or one does not.
>
> Cheers, John Grehan
>
>
>
> On Tue, Jan 25, 2022 at 12:01 PM lynn <lynn at afriherp.org> wrote:
>
>> What exactly is the problem with gender agreement? Lazy taxonomists?
>> Stupid taxonomists incapable of following rules? Surely not! So what is it
>> that needs fixing and why?
>>
>> Lynn
>>
>>> On 25 Jan 2022, at 17:09, Robert Zuparko via Taxacom <
>> taxacom at lists.ku.edu> wrote:
>>> I'm with John on this. To quote Shakespeare:
>>>
>>> "Oh, to deep-six the need for gender agreement! How much sweeter might
>> the
>>> world be?"
>>> I'm not sure which play this was from - maybe one of the Henrys? Or
>> maybe a
>>> sonnet?.
>>>
>>> -Bob Zuparko
>>>
>>>> On Tue, Jan 25, 2022 at 7:01 AM John Grehan via Taxacom <
>>>> taxacom at lists.ku.edu> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> A colleague sent me a copy of the following:
>>>> Cook, L.M. & Muggleton, J. 2003. The peppered moth, Biston betularia
>>>> (Linnaeus, 1758) (Lepidoptera: Geometridae): a matter of names. The
>>>> Entomologist's Gazette 54: 211-221.
>>>>
>>>> Below is an excerpt of the conclusion section concerning gender
>> agreement.
>>>> This is from a few years back, so nothing particularly new here. Gender
>>>> agreement is the one aspect of the Code that I have not followed in my
>>>> group of study (Hepialidae) - with only one exception to my recollection
>>>> where a gender agreement form is well established as the accepted name
>> in
>>>> New Zealand. This decision followed that of Ebbe Schmidt Nielsen (2000)
>> for
>>>> the group, and to avoid the nightmare of trying to establish a
>> consistency
>>>> of names where the gender of some genera is unknown or ambiguous, and
>>>> especially where I was involved in a substantial number of generic
>>>> reassignments of species. I don't know if this paper is open access,
>> but if
>>>> not and anyone wants a copy just let me know.
>>>>
>>>> Cheers, John Grehan
>>>>
>>>> "Regulation does, however, bring its own problems. The intention of the
>>>> Code
>>>> of Zoological Nomenclature is admirable. It is essential to have such a
>>>> system in
>>>> taxonomy if we are to be able to refer precisely to a particular
>> species.
>>>> When
>>>> many species are considered in taxonomic works, the Code must be
>> adhered to
>>>> exactly. In a group such as the British Macrolepidoptera, however, there
>>>> are
>>>> almost no difficult taxonomic questions, and nearly all species have
>> well
>>>> known
>>>> common names. Nevertheless, for various bookkeeping reasons their
>>>> scientific
>>>> names are continually changing, sometimes as fast as the species
>> themselves
>>>> are evolving. Thus, Gonodontis bidentata (Clerck, 1759) showed a
>>>> distinctive pattern of melanism across north-west England in the 1970s
>>>> (Bishop et al., 1978), now changing in Odontopera bidentata (Cook et
>> al.,
>>>> 2002). Lees (1971) established the distribution of melanism in Britain
>> in
>>>> Phigalia pedaria (Fabricius) in the late 1960s. Studies of this species,
>>>> under the name Phigalia pilosaria ([Denis & Schiffermiiller]), 1775)
>> showed
>>>> that it did not much alter in the Midlands over the next decade (Lees,
>>>> 1981) but Apocheima pilosaria is now showing a definite decline in
>> melanic
>>>> frequency (Cook, Riley & Woiwod, 2002). The example of the Peppered Moth
>>>> illustrates well the fact that agreement in gender performs no useful
>>>> function in a world where the genus names regularly change. Moreover, it
>>>> may generate arcane problems that are of no relevance to biology.
>>>> If Treitschke had intended Amphidasys when he named the genus, but
>> misspelt
>>>> it, it would have been masculine. If the version he used was a
>>>> deliberate latinization, however, it becomes feminine. The difference in
>>>> treatment by Staudinger in the two references quoted suggests that he
>> was
>>>> conscious of this problem. We have no way, and no reason, to know what
>>>> Treitschke thought and in a multilingual world that does not presume
>>>> knowledge of Latin and classical Greek it is time to let the rule on
>>>> agreement go. There are hundreds of papers on melanism in the Peppered
>>>> Moth, its frequency about the country, its progressive change and its
>>>> genetics. Nomenclatural usage in them, in Britain at any rate, has its
>>>> origin in Ford (1937). Despite the manifest incorrectness of betularia
>> and
>>>> the oddity of choosing carbonaria, we suggest that these two names
>> should
>>>> continue in use for this particular body of literature."
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Taxacom Mailing List
>>>>
>>>> Send Taxacom mailing list submissions to: taxacom at lists.ku.edu
>>>> For list information; to subscribe or unsubscribe, visit:
>>>> https://lists.ku.edu/listinfo/taxacom
>>>> You can reach the person managing the list at:
>> taxacom-owner at lists.ku.edu
>>>> The Taxacom email archive back to 1992 can be searched at:
>>>>
>> https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Ftaxacom.markmail.org%2F&data=04%7C01%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7C86b2f57d320f49f8655d08d9e0309750%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C637787322923148014%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=3%2BHKxgRCaT8J9wpRQW3eDvYiwhDLXmZo5VzF%2B8xruyc%3D&reserved=0
>>>> Nurturing nuance while assailing ambiguity for about 35 years,
>> 1987-2022.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Robert Zuparko
>>> Essig Museum of Entomology
>>> 1101 Valley Life Sciences Building, #4780
>>> University of California
>>> Berkeley, CA 94720-3112
>>> (510) 643-0804
>>>
>>> It's not a fetish. When a scientist does it, it's an "area of interest."
>> Ze
>>> Frank, True Facts
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Taxacom Mailing List
>>>
>>> Send Taxacom mailing list submissions to: taxacom at lists.ku.edu
>>> For list information; to subscribe or unsubscribe, visit:
>> https://lists.ku.edu/listinfo/taxacom
>>> You can reach the person managing the list at:
>> taxacom-owner at lists.ku.edu
>>> The Taxacom email archive back to 1992 can be searched at:
>> https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Ftaxacom.markmail.org%2F&data=04%7C01%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7C86b2f57d320f49f8655d08d9e0309750%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C637787322923148014%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=3%2BHKxgRCaT8J9wpRQW3eDvYiwhDLXmZo5VzF%2B8xruyc%3D&reserved=0
>>> Nurturing nuance while assailing ambiguity for about 35 years, 1987-2022.
> _______________________________________________
> Taxacom Mailing List
>
> Send Taxacom mailing list submissions to: taxacom at lists.ku.edu
> For list information; to subscribe or unsubscribe, visit: https://lists.ku.edu/listinfo/taxacom
> You can reach the person managing the list at: taxacom-owner at lists.ku.edu
> The Taxacom email archive back to 1992 can be searched at: https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Ftaxacom.markmail.org%2F&data=04%7C01%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7C86b2f57d320f49f8655d08d9e0309750%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C637787322923148014%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=Mcs%2BFK6KRanKQCJu4vryVkVadf6UQ1Ey3PIm0nK%2BnEY%3D&reserved=0
>
> Nurturing nuance while assailing ambiguity for about 35 years, 1987-2022.

-- 
Dr. Martin Wiemers
Head of Ecology
Senckenberg Deutsches Entomologisches Institut
Eberswalder Str. 90
15374 Müncheberg
Germany
Tel. +49 33432 73698-3740
Mobile +49 1578 5401271
Fax +49 3212 6968883
e-mail: martin.wiemers at senckenberg.de
skype: martin.wiemers1
https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.senckenberg.de%2Fmartin-wiemers&data=04%7C01%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7C86b2f57d320f49f8655d08d9e0309750%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C637787322923148014%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=Nf3JkF4e10gyLjvVIpc60kJImth1p3AY05DW04mGPCQ%3D&reserved=0