Branchiobdellidae twice in CoL

[aoern]

Family Branchiobdellidae (24 genera, 150+ species) occurs twice in CoL database. The first source is WoRMS Oligochaeta, the second is ITIS.

[yroskov]

Thank you, @aoern!

Family Branchiobdellidae is adopted sector from ITIS.

ITIS: phylum Annelida - class Clitellata - order Branchiobdellida - family Branchiobdellidae vs WoRMS Oligochaeta: phylum Annelida - class Clitellata - subclass Oligochaeta - order Oligochaeta incertae sedis - family Branchiobdellidae Grube, 1850 = BLOCKED 2023-03-15

@dhobern, will TG agree with this decision, or TG prefer to re-consider provider for the family?

[dhobern]

Sorry to be a pain - why is ITIS taken here over the WoRMS Oligochaeta? There is not very much difference between the two.

Here are all the differences:

ITIS includes four subfamilies, but everything else seems to show WoRMS as a better source:

Several newer publications included.

Cambarincola was described with the species C. macrodonta - it may look feminine but the -incola component is masculine and macrodonta is a neuter plural. ITIS has the species epithets in the feminine. WoRMS has them correctly in the masculine.

The correct spelling is X. appalachius:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/3272943

@yroskov - is there a good reason to stay with ITIS for this?

[DaveNicolson]

In the case of Carambincola, that is more complex. I was discussing this genus and the gender of its species with Stuart Gelder in 2020, and he was working on an updated account for the group as a whole.

Eliis published the genus name Carambincola (link) with two species, a new one (macrodonta, type) and the existing species, originally Astacobdella philadelphica Leidy, clearly feminine, and he gave this new combination explicitly as Carambincola philadelphica.

Although -donta is recognizable in the noun form, after some consideration, Stuart was settling on the view that "Although the root word is a noun, it can be treated as “a noun in the nominative singular standing in apposition to the generic name …” Article 11.9.1.2 [and 31.2.2!]. Therefore, the original spelling is to be retained."

If one accepts that, then the only indication of what Ellis considered the gender of Carambicola is his retention of the spelling philadelphica when transferring that 2nd species into the genus. And that means Ellis considered it to be feminine and his usages, per Art. 30.1.4.2, mean the genus is to be treated as [FEMININE, not sure why I put the word "masculine" here, sorry].

Certainly people can disagree about things like this, and authors have disagreed about this name before, especially in the 1970s (Holt, who changed a lot of feminine epithets to masculine) and 1990s (Holt and Opell, who reverted some), but I was waiting for Stuart to nail things down and get it published before making a full update to the branchiobdellids.

We do plan on keeping this group updated in ITIS, but this gender issue complicated matters for a number of names, and I felt it was best to have it resolved in print before moving forward. I will check with Stuart to see where his work stands.

[DaveNicolson]

There was an extensive discussion of the gender of Cambarincola in the ICZN Listserv in April 2020, if anyone wants to look it up there. As usual, not all commenters agreed, but the weight of the discussion clearly favored recognizing the genus as feminine gender based on the author's use of the only indisputable adjectival species epithet Ellis originally included was used as feminine. Note also that Ellis did clearly recognize the different genders of other genera, e.g. inclusion of Bdellodrilus philadelphicus in synonymy (see p. 486 and another epithet on p.485).

[dhobern]

Thanks @DaveNicolson - I missed the philadelphica case, macrodonta looks to me like a neuter noun (big teeth) in the plural, and Cambarincola clearly means "Dweller on Cambarus" where incola is a masculine noun in Latin word, so it seemed pretty clear to me, but I'm happy with whatever the general consensus is.

Aside from that, the CLB diff tool is wonderful:

• ITIS use of Xironodrilus applachius seems to be a misspelling.
• ITIS is correct with the parentheses for philadelphicus/a - the year is messy - the page gives May 1851 (https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/1642803) although the bound volume gives 1852 (https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/1642641)
• WoRMS is correct with Ohtaka
• ITIS is correct with Liu
• With osceola/osceolai, it seems like Holt was way over-zealous with his use of 31(a) of the ICZN 3rd edition - not sure that the emendation to osceolai looks justified
• ITIS is correct with ogygius: https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/34605855
• I throw my hands up with instabilis/instabilius - all this policing of Latin ... another emendation

[dhobern]

I've just read the ICZN-List discussion and it clearly demonstrates why we need to forget all rules for nomenclature that require interpretation of Latin grammar. I'll put on my hat as a former classical scholar (11 years of Latin and 9 of classical Greek). Much of what is written with great authority in this thread is nonsense from the standpoint of (neo-)classical Latin regarding -incola (the suffix here is properly -incola, and not -cola) and Greek - what is written about Greek genitives, etc. The Greek compound macrodonta includes odonta, which is either the accusative singular or the nominative or accusative plural of ὀδούς, ὀδόντος. The nominative makes perfect sense. Choosing an accusative form makes no sense at all. That means the best interpretation is that this is a plural noun in apposition. It gives no indication of gender. This means that philadelphica is our only clue as to the gender Ellis considered correct for Cambarincola (with masculine being the appropriate answer if we simply look at the Latin form). Since philadelphica seems to be adjectival and Ellis did not make it agree, we can assume he thought the genus name was feminine, which gets us to the same place, but with lots of bad taxonomolinguistic miasma along the way.

[DaveNicolson]

I am no Latin scholar, certainly, and that is why I seek out advice from places like the ICZN listserve (a classical Latin scholar I used to rely upon, in part, retired several years ago, and is no longer easily available to me). I also mistakenly typed "masculine" in a prior comment here, when I meant feminine (corrected now).

Until such time as the Code changes, I'm not sure what else to do other than to read the original descriptions, consult with specialists, and keep an eye towards the goal of stability. In this case, usage has flopped back and forth on the gender of Cambarincola, fostering instability and disagreement with multiple species names, some of which prompted conversations with Stuart Gelder many years ago. He then decided to take a close look at all the names in the genus and try to nail them all down, once and for all (insofar as that can ever be done). I know that the group is incorrect now in ITIS (from an update c2014-2015) w/regard to the gender of species (including an incorrect treatment of the type species), and I have wanted to give Stuart a chance to get his publication finished & published, then we can simply follow that in ITIS, without having to make independent calls on things that I'm not really suited to make.

At least that was the plan. Unfortunately, it has taken years longer than I had hoped for the paper to be finished & published. Perhaps there are some initial fixes we can make in ITIS to at least alleviate the worst of the issues, and make further updates once the paper finally comes out. I just prefer to follow a published account rather than to make an independent assertion in ITIS unless it is absolutely necessary and extremely clear!