Taxacom: Taxacom Digest, Vol 189, Issue 17

[Francisco Welter-Schultes]

In the case of gender agreement in Lepidoptera, Code compliance leads to 
instability. Nieukerken et al. (2019) have explained that. This is a 
problem we have to solve.
Changing the ending in a specific name creates a new string of letters, 
not a new name under the Code, but a new name for most search engines in 
the electronic age. This provides obstacles to communication and may 
also have consequences for conservation. Proposing to change the 
accustomed ending of a specific name for nomenclatural reasons without a 
taxonomic need should be avoided if possible.

As scientists we are used to differentiate, and we are also used to 
general rules having exceptions. Not everything can be forced into a 
black and white frame.

We have two options to maintain stability. Either we incorporate to the 
Code a special regulation for Lepidoptera, as Linneaus has proposed 
indirectly in 1758 (*). Or we find a regulation that applies to all 
names of all animal groups, and has the effect that the tradition in 
lepidopteran nomenclature can be maintained as they have it, and that at 
the same time the accustomed procedures in the other animal groups are 
not affected.
Both approaches would have the same result: stability could be maintained.

(*) Linnaeus did not establish written rules, but applied unwritten 
rules that were later converted into written rules. One such rule, and 
this was overlooked for centuries, was that specific names of 
butterflies are not declined, in contrast to the specific names of all 
other animals.
The next two steps in the history were those:
1. Some subsequent authors violated this unwritten rule and began to 
propose declinable names in the butterfly genus Papilio, either with 
masculine or with feminine ending, depending on their personal 
preference (the gender of Papilio was disputed). Most butterfly 
taxonomists did not decline those in the future, also because they did 
not like to get involved in the dispute. Otherwise they would 
permanently have switched between masculine and feminine endings. This 
tradition - leaving endings as they are - was well justified from this 
point of view, and probably the best solution.
2. Some taxonomists expanded this unwritten rule to moths (genera Sphinx 
and Phalaena) and began not declining specific moth names. I would not 
regard that as justified, but it could perhaps be driven by practical 
considerations.

Zoological nomenclature is based on a legacy. If we intend to understand 
the presence and to develop the future we should not overlook to 
consider the history.

-----
Francisco

Am 27.01.2022 um 08:10 schrieb Milen Marinov via Taxacom:
>   Thanks for sharing Nieukerken et al. (2019), Martin! I read it a growing concern because the authors make some statements which in my opinion are wrong and generally the whole text is encouraging a wrong doing. The authors do not specify what they understand by name changes, but I guess they are talking about new combinations, modifying the spellings, etc. Generally speaking once introduced a scientific name does not change or if there is a need to change a nomen given to a taxon, this has to happen with a nomenclature act. Nomenclatural correctness is just one step of a nomenclature process. Correcting the spelling (if it happens after the initial introduction of the nomen) to be Code compliant with THE RULES is not creating a new name. It is a modification of an existing scientific name. Therefore, such modification don’t lead to new nomina and the “stability” which the authors are advocating is still there.
> In my opinion not adhering to the rules in the Code creates more instability because such behaviour encourages other people not to consider the Code as legislation, but a document with recommendations which may be followed or ignored if already have been ignored by many people. Wrong doing is wrong doing regardless of how many times somebody has done it.
> There are two pathways in zoological nomenclature – Code compliant (correct) and Code ignorant (incorrect). I don’t like the second way even if this has been favoured by millions of taxonomists.
> I put millions intentionally because that's what I want to see in zootaxonomy - millions of people making a career in this science. Unfortunately this is not what we see these days and here the paper makes a short reference to a major problem - people working in taxonomy often lack training in this science because this subject is not widely taught at the universities. Yes, it is difficult if taxonomists don't speak Latin or Greek, but a difficulty shouldn't stop them from trying to be compliant with the rules.
> Regards,Milen
>   
> 
> 
>      On Thursday, 27 January 2022, 07:00:10 am NZDT, <taxacom-request at lists.ku.edu> wrote:
>   
>   Daily News from the Taxacom Mailing List
> 
> When responding to a message, please do not copy the entire digest into your reply.
> ____________________________________
> 
> 
> Today's Topics:
> 
>    1. Gender agreement in Lepidoptera (Martin Wiemers)
>    2. Re: [KU SUSPECT SPAM] Re: Biston betularia moth names
>        (Francisco Welter-Schultes)
>    3. Re: Gender agreement in Lepidoptera (John Grehan)
> 
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2022 19:29:12 +0100
> From: Martin Wiemers <martin.wiemers at univie.ac.at>
> To: taxacom at lists.ku.edu
> Subject: Taxacom: Gender agreement in Lepidoptera
> Message-ID: <04888de7-1238-7f91-281d-e14c35ac1986 at univie.ac.at>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
> 
> 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%7Cffbeb0dfff0d4ad2befb08d9e1a13a3e%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C637788904855454347%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=2V4jPSyIBI5j09SxKVe8RvecmrwnTdCPduD%2FZiT4NmM%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%7Cffbeb0dfff0d4ad2befb08d9e1a13a3e%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C637788904855454347%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=ozbaYvA3jqWgRg7jo9CwCV3BflP%2BTpPOzr6GALB0RYo%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
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>> 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%7Cffbeb0dfff0d4ad2befb08d9e1a13a3e%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C637788904855454347%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=ozbaYvA3jqWgRg7jo9CwCV3BflP%2BTpPOzr6GALB0RYo%3D&reserved=0
>>>> Nurturing nuance while assailing ambiguity for about 35 years, 1987-2022.
>> _______________________________________________
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>>
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>> 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%7Cffbeb0dfff0d4ad2befb08d9e1a13a3e%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C637788904855454347%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=X8FG%2Fbbo98ek2%2B%2FzbuGrwdEmcPFw23f4GJvvzHR6y%2B8%3D&reserved=0
>>
>> Nurturing nuance while assailing ambiguity for about 35 years, 1987-2022.
>