RE: Camarillasaurus, new Early Cretaceous ceratosaur theropod from Spain

[Mickey Mortimer <mickey_mortimer111@msn.com>]

And this is why Latin rules should not be a mandatory part of naming taxa.  The 
normal -i, -ae, -orum rule is pointless enough, if easy to remember, but 
declensions?  The use of Latin (and Greek) is just a historical accident, and 
we don't require biologists to know e.g. Spanish genders and tenses.  Surely 
the important thing is to give each taxon a distinct and pronouncable name, 
which Camarillasaurus cirugedae is regardless.

Mickey Mortimer

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> Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2012 12:33:44 -0700
> From: bcreisler@gmail.com
> To: dinosaur@usc.edu
> Subject: Re: Camarillasaurus, new Early Cretaceous ceratosaur theropod from 
> Spain
>
> From: Ben Creisler
> bcreisler@gmail.com
>
>
> Jocelyn noted:
> "*Camarillasaurus cirugedae* sp. nov.
> [...]
> Etymology: The species name cirugedae comes from the surname of the
> person who found the bones, Pedro Cirugeda Buj."
>
> ...
>
> As far as I know, Pedro is a male name, in Spanish, so the correct
> epithet should be *cirugedai* !
>
>
> ===
> Note that the surname Cirugeda would be a first-declension noun in
> Latin and so would have a genitive case Cirugedae regardless of the
> masculine gender of the person named. Some first-declension nouns and
> names in Latin were masculine (agricola, Numa).
>
> The ICZN mentions this option.
> http://www.nhm.ac.uk/hosted-sites/iczn/code/
>
> Chapter 7, Article 31:
>
> 31.1 "Nicolaus Poda, even though the name of a man, if accepted as a
> Latin name, gives podae."
>
> Under current ICZN rules, either cirugedae or cirugedai--or even
> cirugedi--would be correct.