Talk:Urania sloanus

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A fact from Urania sloanus appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on 11 October 2007.

[edit] Latin name

Surely (speaking as a Latinist not a lepidopterist) the name should be the genitive 'sloani', and not what appears to be a masculine adjective 'sloanus' modifying a feminine noun 'urania'? Awien 16:33, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm not a Latinist, nor a lepidopterist (although I am an amateur one). But you seem to be right. I’ll give you my best (amateur) lepidopterist answer: The specific epithet “sloanus” was given before the genus “Urania”. Meaning Pieter Cramer (1721 - 1779), who named the moth in 1779, was probably right at that time, but then Johan Christian Fabricius (1745 - 1808) changed the butterfly into a new genus (Urania) created by himself in 1807. Because Cramer was the first one to describe the moth, the name he gave is kept (in respect for him... he did discover the specie), but since the genus was “wrong” it is changed. I invite you to ask any questions you might have about my explication. Pro bug catcher (talk • contribs). 23:35, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Well . . . Latin for 'Sloan's' is 'sloani' in the same way 'Hodgson's' is 'hodgsoni' as explained in the binomial nomenclature article, 'Commerson's' is 'commersoni', 'Lincoln's' is 'lincolnii', and so on. So whatever the history, 'sloanus' is atrocious Latin, and I suspect that if we went to actual printed nineteenth-century sources it's not what we would find, in spite of what we find on the internet. However, the natural sciences are not my field, so I'm butting out. Just before I go, though, the singular of 'species' is 'species', not 'specie' (Lewis and Short, A Latin Dictionary, p. 1736). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Awien (talk • contribs) 00:06, 13 October 2007 (UTC)