So close Ross, not a bad guess!
According to HBW Alive it means "fond of pleasure" (phileo/hedone)
http://www.hbw.com/dictionary/definition/philedon
Cheers,
Chris
On Tue, Jun 23, 2015 at 3:37 PM, Ross Macfarlane (TPG) <>
wrote:
> Honeyeater in Latin is Meliphaga, which is of course the original genus
> name for Lewin's honeyeater etc.
>
> Philedon sounds more like Greek - philo- for like, and -don for tooth. In
> other words, sweet tooth!
>
> Unless this by some miracle happens to be correct, it's a joke, Joyce!
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Birding-Aus On Behalf
> Of Philip Veerman
> Sent: Tuesday, 23 June 2015 2:25 PM
> To: 'Carl Clifford'; 'Martin Butterfield';
> Cc: 'Birding-Aus'
> Subject: Re: [Birding-Aus] White-cheeked Honeyeater
>
> Clive wrote that "Christidis & Boles list it as Phylidonyris niger" but
> not in my copy. Christidis & Boles (RAOU Monograph 2 1994) give it as
> Phylidonyris nigra and quote Bechstein 1811. It is also given (by Cayley)
> as Meliornis, meaning honey + bird. Not that I know much, but hard to see
> how Latin Philedon = honeyeater. Wouldn't phil relate to lover, rather than
> eater? (I would have thought eater would be phag. Is edon = honey? I would
> have thought the issue comes down to what was the spelling given at the
> time it was first described, being the correct name, unless there is a
> reason to determine that as invalid or changed. Should priority of name be
> changed just because of mismatch of gender between genus and species name?
> What a crazy idea that is, especially if it is as hard to decide as it
> would appear to be here.
>
> I am amused by Carl's "is a bit of a manmade word". Assuming that man
> includes women, I wonder what other sort of word exists. (Carl first left
> the n out of Phylidonyris and in the 2nd message extended this by leaving
> out the ny.) Some of these changes happen in books just because someone
> made a mistake and many other books copied the mistake. Good example is in
> the Sparrowhawk wrongly listed in many books as Accipiter cirrhocephalus
> instead of Accipiter cirrocephalus.
>
> Philip
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Birding-Aus On Behalf
> Of Carl Clifford
> Sent: Tuesday, 23 June 2015 10:49 AM
> To: Martin Butterfield
> Cc: Birding-Aus
> Subject: Re: [Birding-Aus] White-cheeked Honeyeater
>
> Hmm, that is slightly different to what is said in James Jobling's "A
> Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. If Phylidoris is one of those
> Greek-Latin hybrid words, it probably should be given a specific epithet
> that is neuter. No doubt whoever agreed on the name thought they were a
> better classicist than they actually were.
>
> You are right about giving words a gender, a right pain. Could be worse
> though. Latin could be still alive and well and we would have to deal with
> the declension of nouns on to of their gender. No wonder the Roman Empire
> declined.
>
> Carl Clifford
>
>
>
> > On 23 Jun 2015, at 9:44 am, Martin Butterfield <>
> wrote:
> >
> > According to "Australian Bird Names a complete guide" by Ian Fraser and
> Jeannie Gray the Philedon element comes from the Greek for "attractive",
> The Cinnyris bit does link back to sunbird .
> >
> > The business of gender of names all makes me glad we speak English, as
> with all the irrationalities in that language, at least we avoided daftness
> like having to decide what gender to apply to words such as the French
> "l'internet"!
> >
> > Martin
> >
> > Martin Butterfield
> > http://franmart.blogspot.com.au/
> >
> >> On 22 June 2015 at 21:24, Carl Clifford <>
> wrote:
> >> Hi Clive,
> >>
> >> Bit of an update on the mystery. I have been doing a bit of a rummage
> through the library, and it seems that Phylidoyris is a bit of a manmade
> word. It comes from the French, Phylédon (Honeyeater), which comes from the
> Latin Philedon (honeyeater), cobbled together with the Latin Cynnyris
> (sunbird). No wonder the taxonomists couldn't decide which sex the word
> was. Probably should have been called nigrum, the neuter form.
> >>
> >> Carl Clifford
> >>
> >>
> >> > On 22 Jun 2015, at 4:17 pm, Clive Nealon <>
> wrote:
> >> >
> >> > Greetings,
> >> > Can someone explain, please, why HANZAB, Pizzey & Knight (8th Ed),
> >> > and Morcombe field guides list White-cheeked Honeyeater as
> >> > Phylidonyris nigra, and IOC and Christidis & Boles list it as
> >> > Phylidonyris niger?
> >> > Thanks.
>
>
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