RE: floridae vs floridense

["Greenman" <bnbjohns at attbi_com>]

Yes, but this assumes that the scientist who named the species knows his
Latin well enough to know which is the appropriate ending. Please remember
that scientific latin is anything but true to the rules of classical Latin.
Most scientists are very good at Latinizing common names, but that does not
mean that they know the Latin well enough to distinguish the finer points.
The ending "ae" is the common feminine possesive form, which would make
sense to most who are not all that familiar with latin to say that "Florida"
(with the feminine "a" ending) would be "Floridae"- "of Florida" or
"Florida's" Flag Fish. This is a logical choice, even if not technically
accurate according to the grammar of Latin. The only way to really solve
this is to find out who named the fish, and what HE meant by the floridae
epiteth. Who knows, possibly he meant it as a bit of a pun- the florid flag
fish of Florida :)

At any rate, I really don't care which name is used. Both seem more or less
appropriate, and the scientific name still stands until some taxonomist
decides to mess with the family tree. I'm more interested in the note that
the Flag Fish is actually a Pupfish. Is this true? That's kinda cool. And
does it imply that other pupfish are algae eaters too?

Brett Johnson
Green Man Gardens
bnbjohns at attbi_com

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Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2002 11:20:10 -0500
From: "Doug Karpa-Wilson" <dkarpawi at indiana_edu>
Subject: floridae vs floridense

O.k. I realize I'm now in pet peeve mode, but "ae" is not an ending
signifying location.  I'm pretty sure that "floridae" only resembles the
name Florida because both are derived from a common root meaning colorful or
'florid'


Doug