Dear Masashi, The thing is that, unlike English (but like Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, etc...), Latin names belong to one out of three genders: masculine, feminine or neuter. It is not always easy to know what gender things belongs to, because Latin use a system of five declensions where genders may be mixed, but as a first approach you can asume that names fininished in -a are feminine, in -o, -us are masculine and those finished in -um or consonant tend (but not always) to be neuter. Linnaeus, like all of that time scientist, speaks Latin very well. The problem arise when a species is given a new generic name (that could belong to another gender) but retains unchanged its specific name. This drives directly to a grammatical error, but if (and then my question) ICZN accepts the new name as valid, this error will be perpetuated unless there is a rule that gives priority to grammar over nomenclature. Hope this help you to understand the thing, Best regards, Alfonso Pina Malaga Spain