Dear Gary et al.,

It seems to me that the Latin language distinguished between the two
horse/donkey hybrid crosses, and the Greek language left us no evidence of
so-doing.

In Latin the offspring of a male horse and female donkey was called a
"hinnus."  This persists in English as "hinny."  The more utilitarian hybrid is
the reciprocal cross (male donkey and female horse), which produced a "mulus"
("mula" fem.) or "mule" in English, a superior beast of burden.

Thus the genus Hinnites deFrance, 1821 refers to the hinny; the species Eulimia
mulata Rios and Absalão, 1990 derives from "mula" ("mule" in the strict sense,
secondary anthropomorphism notwithstanding).  While the intention in taxonomic
diction is the same (hybrid, or intermediate), there is a very practical
distinction, even for malacologists.  I don't think Annie Law would have taken
a hinny to the Great Smoky Mts. on her snailing expeditions.


At 11:30 AM 3/9/01 -0500, you wrote:
>Defrance (1821) named Hinnites for two fossil species. He consider the genus
>intermediate between Ostrea and Spondlyus, but did not state a derivation of
>its name.
>
>Gray (1826, Annals of Philosophy 12:104) transferred Lima gigantea to
>Hinnites, as Hinnita gigantea, stating "the name must be changed, as the
>termination _ites_ is only used in those genera where the species have only
>hitherto been found in a fossil state".
>
>Later the same year (Annals of Philosophy 12:362), Gray said "The name of
>this genus must be changed to _Hinnus_ for whilst this paper was going to
>press, a classical friend has pointed out to me, that the above word is the
>proper derivative of _Hinnites_, and not _Hinnita_, as I had inadvertently
>called it in my former paper.
>
>In Greek, "ginnos" or "innos" means mule, in Latin, "hinnus" means mule. The
>ending "-ites" in Greek and means "having the nature of".  Brown (1956,
>Composition of Scientific Words, p. 549) says "The gender of Greek nouns in
>-_ites_ is generally masculine....to form the feminine, change _-ites_ to
>_-itis_.
>
>The International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (Article 20) states "A
>name formed by adding the suffix _-ites_, _-ytes_, or _-ithes_ to the whole
>of to the stem of an available name of a genus-group taxon, without clear
>evidence of intent to establish a new genus-group taxon, is available only
>for the purposes of the Principle of Homonymy. Such a name cannot be used as
>the valid name of a taxon..."  Hinnites was not based on an earlier
>available genus name (and it was explicitly described as a new genus), so it
>is safe to use it.
>
>Some of you might remember the controversy about Murex aculeatus Lamarck,
>1822 versus Chicoreus artemis Radwin & D'Attilio, 1976. Radwin & D'Attilio
>renamed Lamarck's species stating that it was preoccupied by Schlotheim,
>1820. Schlotheim named his species Muricites aculeatus, and the species is
>now considered to be a Tympanotonos (Potamididae), so some people argued
>that no homonymy existed and that no replacement name was necessary.
>However, Muricites is merely an emendation of Murex (to indicate the fossil
>state), so any species named as a Muricites is automatically considered to
>have been named as a Murex, so Radwin & D'Attilio were correct to rename the
>species.
>
>This leads to one more twist about Hinnites: if a species was named as
>Hinnita or Hinnus and is now placed in Hinnites, the author and date do not
>go in parenthesis, because those names are emendations (ICZN Article 51.3.1).
>
>Gary

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