Once again referring to the late Alan Solem's monographs on Oceania
endodontoid land snails.  He described two new genera, Aadonta and Zzydonta
(spelling may be off).  He began one genus with an A and other with a Z to
illustrate the vast differences between them in shell morphology, although
they are supposedly fairly closely related.
 
Kurt
 
At 02:19 PM 10/13/98 -0500, you wrote:
>Dear Conchlers,
>
>Helmut is right; the rules of nomenclature do include much besides Latin
>grammar: how to select and recognize type specimens, type species, and type
>genera; how to determine which of two homonyms or synonyms is valid; what
>constitutes publication, etc., etc. What could I have been thinking of?
>
>There are other methods of naming genera and species in addition to those
>that have already been discussed. Early authors, such as Linnaeus, borrowed
>names from Greek and Roman mythology. Venus is a bivalve, but Aphrodita is
>a worm (a very beautiful worm, but still a worm). In at least one case
>(butterflies), he gave a whole family of organisms names of related
>mythological characters. This was not only done to charm and amuse, but as
>an aid to memory. Astronomers did the same for Jupiter's moons and other
>celestial objects; Jupiter's moons are the classical god's handmaidens.*
>Today, it is hard to find a biologist who knows, say, the names of the
>Titans or of Jason's Argonauts, but it was not so hard then. This would be
>impossible to do nowadays, because mythology is out of vogue and the best
>names have been used already. But if someone were splitting a genus into
>subgenera and named them all after characters from a classic such as Lewis
>Carroll's Alice books, I certainly would not object.
>
>Another method is to honor famous research vessels, such as the Velero, a
>ship operated by the University of Southern California. Any other examples?
>
>Still another method is to scramble the letters of a related genus to form
>an anagram. Can anyone give molluscan examples? And the Code even allows
>random combinations of letters, as long as they can be pronounced.
>Examples, anyone?
>
>Andrew K. Rindsberg
>Geological Survey of Alabama
>
>P.S. to Helmut: Thanks for the offer, but I think it's better for us to
>trade ideas about music than to trade CD's. We can continue this discussion
>privately (not on Conch-L).
>
>*Well, they started their jobs as maidens: Io, Callisto, Europa, Sinope,
>Pasiphae, etc. Ganymede wasn't a maiden, but even the gods act out of
>character sometimes.
>