Date:         Wed, 21 Mar 2012 16:23:47 -0400
Reply-To:     Conchologists List <CONCH-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sender:       Conchologists List <CONCH-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         "Harry G. Lee" <hglee2@MINDSPRING.COM>
Subject:      Re: Dermomurex neglectus or neglecta?
In-Reply-To:  <4F6A2B1F.7070803@cox.net>
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;

Hi Cecil,

I the context of its use for this taxon, neglectus, -a, -um is a past
participle (Latin: neglected) and is mandated by the/ Code/ to be to be
treated as an adjective and declined to agree in gender with the genus
with which it is combined. /Dermomurex/ is a derivative of /Murex,/ and
murex was a vernacular word in Latin applied to the snails that produced
the Tyrian purple. It was a masculine noun in the days of the Roman
Empire, and it was treated as masculine by Linnaeus, who applied it to a
rather large, and, by, modern standards, heterogeneous, group of shells
just as several predecessor naturalists had done.

Short version: /Dermomurex neglectus/.

Perhaps the incorrect "/neglecta/" spelling carried over from the
*original *spelling of species epithet, which was thus correctly spelled
when combined with the feminine genus /Phyllocoma/. I see the otherwise
impeccable Higo, Callomon and Goto (1999: 200) allowed this to happen.

Higo, Callomon, and Goto, 1999. /Catalogue and bibliography of the
marine shell-bearing mollusca of Japan Gastropoda - Bivalvia -
Polyplacophora - Scaphopoda./ Elle Publications, Osaka. pp. 1-749.

Harry


On 3/21/2012 3:25 PM, Cecil Bankston wrote:
> In different presumably authoritative web sites and books I have found
> my little Dermomurex listed as neglectus or neglecta.  Which is the
> correct form for the species name?
>
> --
> Cecil N. Bankston
> Baton Rouge, LA
> USA
>
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--
Harry G. Lee MD
4132 Ortega Forest Drive
Jacksonville, FL 32210-5813
USA
(904) 389 4049
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hglee2@mindspring.com


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