Re: Dinosaur skin revisited

[NJPharris@aol.com]

In a message dated 97-08-19 12:06:37 EDT, Dinogeorge writes:

> Since -us doesn't make the word >necessarily< masculine, and the original 
> Greek gender doesn't make the word >necessarily< feminine, 

Why not?  I thought this was the whole point of this discussion:  the gender
of the name, based on the gender of the root in the language from which it
was borrowed, determines the gender form of species epithets.  In Greek, the
word "gnathos", whether "kompse" or otherwise, is feminine.


>  But I note the scientific name _Procompsognathus triassicus_, coined in
1913.
>  Here the root -gnathus is used with the masculine adjectival species
epithet 
> _triassicus_. 

So why not just amend this to _P. triassica_ as you did with the others?

NP