Taxacom: Biston betularia moth names

Wed Jan 26 12:36:22 CST 2022

In the botanical nomenclature, the species epithet "betularia" would be
considered a noun in apposition, and it would not trigger any discussion
like this one.
Adolf Ceska

-----Original Message-----
From: Taxacom On Behalf Of Robert Zuparko via Taxacom
Sent: Tuesday, January 25, 2022 08:07
To: John Grehan <calabar.john at gmail.com>
Cc: taxacom <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
Subject: Re: Taxacom: Biston betularia moth names

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%2Ftaxac
> om.markmail.org%2F&data=04%7C01%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7C1734643
> 9b40b4c195ba708d9e01cc047%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7
> C637787237268188757%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIj
> oiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=XhztA37nsuGH
> Q%2FmwT9p7sc2vFzswtWuacurPsvDUEnw%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%7C02a38ba6bbe84ba90dd508d9e0fac45c%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C637788189915555464%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=oxv68nRWlaYXi8PJ%2BjHV62WGVa5aCpU6iIoKX4PfEr0%3D&reserved=0

Nurturing nuance while assailing ambiguity for about 35 years, 1987-2022.

-- 
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.avast.com%2Fantivirus&data=04%7C01%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7C02a38ba6bbe84ba90dd508d9e0fac45c%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C637788189915555464%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=2ZLzImoipTkY2SV1sBZ2ppmf2q5jehS8G0WxUGET85A%3D&reserved=0