Dear Alfonso Pina and other Conchlers,

thank you best for having mentioned this important theme.
In Latin there are three grammatical gender:
maculinum: for example with ending - us and - oides (like Melanoides)
femininum: ending in general with - a, but also - us (as in quercus or any
other plants, as you said)
neutrum: ending in general with - um, but also with stome, like
Cochlostoma, Chilostoma, eg.
              (as the last ones are deriving from Greek). Some Latinzed
Genders deriving friom Greek
              should have the same gender as in Greek

If a shells is transferred to another genus with a another grammatical
gender you should correct
the species name in endings, when it is a adjective, but not when it is
used as substantive.
It is allowed by the rules of nomenclature, but you can't change errors of
authors in not
grammatical endings as - i, ii. The last corrections are not allowed.

So make let us a small text

Chilostoma cingulat-
Ranella oleari-
Cerithium vulgat-
Patella vulgat-

Further I am not a Mitra specialist. The other way is correct. If it was
called Mitra tuberosa and
now is per example Vexillum you have to change from Mitra tuberosa to
Vexillum tuberosum.
But as I can't out find at the moment if this species realla exist, writing
this e-mail to you, I
can't give you an exact answer. But let as try this version, although I
don't know if it is correct,
but to imagine all.

If a shell of the genus Vexillum (maybe taeniatum, citrinum, exasperatum)
was formerly in genus
Mitra, the authors may called the shells
Mitra taeniata
Mitra citrina
Mitra exasperata  ......but only to imagine,

and they are posted now in genus Vexillum, Vexillum is neutrum, and so you
have to change the
species name in taeniatum, citrinum, exasperatum.

that's all for the moment. Sorry for my bad English in this explantion.
Hope you understand it.
with best shelling greetings
Helmut

Helmut "Helix" Nisters
private:
Franz-Fischer-Str. 46
A-6020 Innsbruck / Austria / Europe
phone: 0043 / 512 / 57 32 14
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
website: www.netwing.at/nisters
office:
Natural History Department of the
Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum Innsbruck
Feldstrasse 11a
A-6020 Innsbruck / Austria / Europe
phone: 0043 / 512 / 58 72 86 - 37
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
website: www.tiroler-landesmuseum.at


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Hello everybody,
I've noticed during my hard last months learning on Molluscs that many of
their Latin names are not correct from a grammatical point of view.
Specially, I have found a lot of gender disagrees, (well, maybe this is
more evident to Romance languages speakers than to English speakers) and I
don't know the criteria of ICZN about this. So the question is: Can I use
the correct Latin name and so change, let's say "Mitra tuberosum" to "Mitra
tuberosa" wherever I found it -at my own risk- or may I respect any
nomenclatural convention above grammatical correction?
Incidentally, I will comment to you that botanist seems not to have this
trouble: in Latin all plants are feminine!
Best regards,

Alfonso Pina
Malaga
Spain