Re: pilot whales, gender names, elephants & trees...

[NEIL CLARK <NCLARK@museum.gla.ac.uk>]

> Sorry to drag on the gender name stuff, but is the fact that the name 
of the
> Short finned pilot whale was recently changed from Globicephala 
meleana to
> Globicephala melas at all relevant? 
> 
To change a name they would have had to give their reasons.  Have 
you the article in which they do this?  As far as I can work out 'Globi' 
comes from the Latin 'globus' and is masculine.  'Cephala' comes 
from the Greek 'kephale' which is also male.  Why the authors called 
the animal Globicephala (part masculine part female), I don't know.  
The species name is feminine in the former and very strange in the 
latter.  I can't understand the termination '-as'.  It seems not to be 
masculine, feminine or neuter and is probably wrong.  I guess the 
Commission must have allowed this one through the nets:)

Neil