Open sjl197 opened 1 year ago
DaveNicolson
commented
1 year ago ITIS was already notified about the first one, and we have a fix prepared for loading into ITIS at the end of the month, at which time it will make its way into COL. The submitter did not mention the other names to us, unfortunately. I'll have to take another look now, which may hold the fix up until next month, as our deadline is almost here for this month. :-(
DaveNicolson
commented
1 year ago I have taken a look at the three cases noted, and agree with the suggestions. Not having much formal linguistic training, I fear I know enough to get myself into trouble in this arena, but these look pretty safe. Unfortunately, this genus has something like 470 species, and long/old usage patterns as feminine add to the complexity & numbers of potential pitfalls.
While we at ITIS do try to be responsive to individual suggested corrections, the main way we work is to add/update a complete group at one fell swoop, rather than to pick out individual issues to resolve. This is a matter of batch efficiency, as ITIS is not (yet) geared up for streamlined individual edits (the online workbench we are testing would help a lot with this, but it's not quite production-ready yet). So I fear that this large and historically gender-confused genus could end up being something we have to tweak every month, frankly! And at present we can't really afford to dilute our efforts that way... Maybe in a year we will be able to make individual fixes here and there much more easily, but right now we will need to deal with these three issues and probably leave any further issues in this genus for when we next update the megachilids (or for when we can more easily tweak individual names).
All that said, here are my notes on the 3 issues in this ticket:
=================================== https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/10927781 Lepeletier (1841:525) coined "Coelioxys afra", and clearly treated the genus as feminine (lots of combinations given in feminine adjectival form).
https://archive.org/details/compositionofsci00brow/page/72/mode/1up afer, afra, afrum, L. African; see Africa... See also https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Afer#Latin
While "Afer" CAN be a noun (per wiktionary, this could have triggered ICZN Art. 31.2.2), "afra" was used, and doesn't appear to be a noun. I conclude it is adjectival, and must be changed to match the gender of the genus: Coelioxys afer Lepeletier, 1841 (valid) Coelioxys afra Lepeletier, 1841 (invalid, other see comment: Mandatory change for gender concordance. Coelioxys is masculine, so the name in this combination should be Coelioxys afer, not C. afra)
=================================== https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/7727512 Cresson 1878:95 coined "Coelioxys aperta", and clearly treated the genus as feminine (lots of combinations given in feminine adjectival form).
https://archive.org/details/compositionofsci00brow/page/95/mode/1up Apertura, L., an opening; aperio, -ertus, open, uncover, lay bare; see hole, open Hole: L. apertura, f. openinng, hole : aperture Open: L. aperio, -ertus, open; ... ex: Bulimina aperta (a foraminifer.) See also https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/apertus#Latin
I do not see a "noun" that this could be offhand (happy to be corrected), so I conclude it is adjectival, and must be changed to match the gender of the genus: Coelioxys apertus Cresson, 1878 (valid) Coelioxys aperta Cresson, 1878 (invalid, other see comment: Mandatory change for gender concordance. Coelioxys is masculine, so the name in this combination should be Coelioxys apertus, not C. aperta)
=================================== https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/4501343 Holmberg (1917:564) coined "Coelioxys pruna", and clearly treated the genus as feminine (lots of combinations given in feminine adjectival form).
https://archive.org/details/compositionofsci00brow/page/n645/mode/1up Pruna, L. a live coal; see coal Coal ... L. pruna, f. a live coal https://archive.org/details/compositionofsci00brow/page/n626/mode/1up Plum [...] prunus, F. plum-tree...
"Prunus" is a noun, "pruna" is a different noun. Neither appears to be adjectival. So the original form must be retained: Coelioxys pruna Holmberg, 1917 (valid) Coelioxys prunus Holmberg, 1917 (invalid; other see comment: In Holmberg's original (1917:564) use of Coelioxys pruna, the epithet is a noun, not an adjective, and it must retain its original form)
===================================
DaveNicolson
commented
1 year ago @sjl197 I've folded these and several other congeneric corrections into this month's load, but given that there are close to 500 species in the genus, there were a number that looked suspicious but not clear enough to me to act upon. I suspect there will be a number of others needing to be corrected in gender from feminine to masculine, but it will take input from others with more linguistic "chops" than I have... We may see if Doug Yanega is willing to weigh in, since he is more at home in these matters than most, or perhaps start up a discussion in the ICZN listserve (although questions there tend to get multiple answers that are sometimes in conflict!). But at least we have a start on the "easier" cases...... Thanks, Dave
Describe the problem:
At least three species seem malformed, two through failure of gender agreement to masculine, a third possibly through pseudo-inflection of a noun in apposition
1: For "Coelioxys afra Lepeletier, 1841" https://www.catalogueoflife.org/data/taxon/WR4B latin adjective https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Afer#Latin --> Coelioxys (Allocoelioxys) afer Lepeletier, 1841 This species seems clearly needs to have masculine inflection of species epithet. This is clearest said in Rasmont et al. 2007. where p.22 "Coelioxys afer Lepeletier, 1841 = Coelioxys afra Lepeletier, 1841." The reasoning is then earlier as p.21 "There are a number of misuses of gender within the genera Coelioxys, Dioxys and Paradioxys. Almost all publications still use feminine binominal names for these genera. The genera Coelioxys, Dioxys and Paradioxys are masculine names. The term “oxys” is the masculine singular nominative form of a Greek adjective, that has other two different forms for feminine “oxeîa” or neuter “oxy”. Therefore, all genera ending in “-oxys” are unambiguously masculine, regardless of their author’s intent; it does not matter whether Coelioxys was originally combined with conica, or Dioxys with cincta. In the case of Coelioxys, Dioxys and Paradioxys, the pertinent ICZN Article 30.1.2 should be applied. It means that all epithets from these genera should be masculine (D. Yanega, pers. comm.)."
2: For "Coelioxys aperta Cresson, 1878" https://www.catalogueoflife.org/data/taxon/WR54 latin Participle https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/apertus#Latin --> Coelioxys (Xerocoelioxys) apertus Cresson, 1878
Per the restructuring above for masculine.
3: Then possibly for "Coelioxys prunus Holmberg, 1917" https://www.catalogueoflife.org/data/taxon/WRFG latin noun in apposition https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pruna#Latin --> Coelioxys (Glyptocoelioxys) pruna Holmberg, 1917
This appears to be a noun, therefore the orthographic variant "prunus" seems a false mock-inflection. The original paper needs to be checked to help decide intention for the nomenclature. ...
Link to effected CoL webpages: Coelioxys (Allocoelioxys) afer Lepeletier, 1841 Coelioxys aperta Cresson, 1878 Coelioxys prunus Holmberg, 1917
Literature references:
Rasmont et al. 2017. Addition to the checklist of IUCN European wild bees (Hymenoptera: Apoidea) Annales de la Société entomologique de France (N.S.), Vol. 53, No. 1, 17–32, https://doi.org/10.1080/00379271.2017.13076 ...