Taxacom: Mandatory ending correction after 226 years of wrong usage - the Dasytes case

[Douglas Yanega]

In a nutshell, "taxonomic tradition" is not infallible, and not immutable.

Michael Heads wrote: "This is why no-one is suggesting changing Agriotes 
or Lipotes to feminine"

Actually, if they are being misgendered as masculine, then I *am* 
suggesting changing them. That's what "mandatory ending correction" 
means. The Code does not set any time limits, it does not contain a 
"grandfathering clause" to accept traditional treatment regardless of 
whether it is incorrect.

There are very few examples - and I've seen nearly every single one - 
where a misgendered suffix has been used so often and for so long that 
it might merit serious consideration for an application to the 
Commission specifically to address the gender issue and preserve the 
*misgendered* forms.

As far as precedent, the Commission has almost never, in its history, 
issued rulings *specifically* intended to address the genders of names. 
Out of some 4000 rulings and opinions and declarations, I can only think 
of maybe 3 or 4 examples, and in none of the ones I know of was the 
misgendered variant the one adopted; the rulings were to PREVENT 
taxonomists from continuing to misgender names. The most recent such 
ruling was one in which every genus name ending in or based upon Lepisma 
was expressly declared to be neuter, despite centuries of various 
taxonomists treating many of the names as if they were feminine - 
including Linnaeus himself. "Lepsima saccharina" is gone, forever, 
replaced by Lepisma saccharinum.

As far as exceptions go, one of the only cases I know of where I - in my 
capacity as a Commissioner - might vote in favor of allowing 
misgendering is the >150 mantis genera ending in "-mantis", which are 
all treated as feminine, with no discernable justification under the 
ICZN. There are a fair number of frog genera whose names end in "mantis" 
and they are all treated as masculine.

In "standard Greek dictionaries", the word is given only as masculine:

https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.perseus.tufts.edu%2Fhopper%2Fmorph%3Fl%3Dmantis%26la%3Dgreek&data=05%7C02%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7C3921f2070ed74458152c08dd41507354%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C638738537154178422%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C40000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=BaiiTWHBrc1O47ajC94k9sOgJb2THfol0fAr8Ap0H4U%3D&reserved=0

https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wiktionary.org%2Fwiki%2F%25CE%25BC%25CE%25AC%25CE%25BD%25CF%2584%25CE%25B9%25CF%2582%23Ancient_Greek&data=05%7C02%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7C3921f2070ed74458152c08dd41507354%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C638738537154219282%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C40000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=2JOGdfVrFnN7jpYM%2BamxrnnS1ydYQwjuKY%2B34GRAtHg%3D&reserved=0

and Linnaeus treated Mantis as a subgenus of Gryllus, so none of the 
species were originally combined with the genus name "Mantis" - they 
were all given as masculine epithets, including Gryllus (Mantis) religiosus:

https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.biodiversitylibrary.org%2Fitem%2F219023%23page%2F438%2Fmode%2F1up&data=05%7C02%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7C3921f2070ed74458152c08dd41507354%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C638738537154245377%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C40000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=GmbqQifBY5mjMQYzkf5bi85wFAqw8k2mVxsb7n7TWHQ%3D&reserved=0

EVEN IF we discover that there are rare uses in Greek where the word 
"mantis" is treated as feminine, then we would apply Article 30.1.4.2, 
treating the name as of variable gender, but it would still be masculine 
because it was *not* originally combined with feminine species epithets, 
and under 30.1.4.2 variable names are masculine by default. "Mantis 
religiosa" is *incorrect* under the ICZN. But, I'm not inclined to push 
for changing it, in this case.

Changing the gender of names like Agriotes and Dasytes is trivial in 
terms of impact upon the global community (fewer than 200 species with 
affected spellings, of taxon names largely used *only by specialist 
coleopterists*) compared to all the species of mantises (probably over 
1000) whose names would change if the Code was enforced in this case.

Certainly, if you're a coleopterist like Isidor, who is directly 
affected by a change, it's going to be painful, but let's be objective 
about this: there are probably fewer than 10 people in the world who 
actively work on dasytine melyrids (I can only think of 5), and at least 
2 of them are perfectly happy adopting the change in gender. Radical 
proposals like abandoning gender agreement and reverting all names to 
their original spellings would result in changes to the spellings of 
something on the order of 300,000 to 400,000 names across zoology. 
Abandoning gender agreement would be the *most* disruptive thing we 
could possibly do.

Peace,

-- 
Doug Yanega      Dept. of Entomology       Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0314  voicemail:951-827-8704
FaceBook: Doug Yanega (disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
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