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Little Kingfisher scientific name

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Subject: Little Kingfisher scientific name
From: Carl Clifford <>
Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2008 15:54:16 +1100
That would be right. I just ran pusilla and pusillus through a couple of on-line Latin dictionarys, and pusillus is the male adjective. Looks like Temmink was not as good at Latin as he thought I am sticking with pusillus.

Carl Clifford


On 31/10/2008, at 2:26 PM,  wrote:

On Fri, Oct 31, 2008 at 02:06:06PM +1100, Carl Clifford wrote:
Call it whatever you like, because whichever name you use, someone
will say you are wrong.

My knowledge of Latin is mostly limited to what I learnt from Monty
Python's "Life of Brian", but I remember reading in C&B 2008 that
similar name changes are due to Latin grammatical gender.

According to Wikipedia, Ceyx was "the son of Eosphorus and the king
of Thessaly", so presumably the genus name is also masculine.
That would make "C. pusillus" the technically correct specific name
- "pusilla" should be feminine.  (However there are some exceptions
e.g.  "nauta" - sailor - is masculine.)

--
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
  Paul Taylor                           Veni, vidi, tici -
                   I came, I saw, I ticked.

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