Paul Monfils asks why so many generic names named for people end in the feminine suffix -a. Like most taxonomic questions, this one has a history behind it. In the early days of taxonomy, virtually all taxonomists were male and wrote in Latin. If I had written on shells at that time, I would have probably been referred to as Rindsbergius or Rindsbergus instead of Rindsberg. Generic names were capitalized, but not italicized. Under the circumstances, how would you distinguish a person's name (Rindsbergius) from a generic name (Rindsbergius)? They would look and sound alike. Imagine having a snail named "Rindsbergius" and then being called by the snail's name: The students would love it, but the joke would get stale fast. Better to name the snail as Rindsbergia or Rindsbergium, or even better as "little Rindsberg": Rindsbergiella, Rindsbergina, etc. Incidentally, Rindsberg is pronounced with a short "i", as in "little", not as in "mind". Chauvinism probably also entered into this consideration. Male botanists may have preferred to give feminine endings to the names of showy flowers, for instance (Bougainvillea, Begonia, Kalmia, Dahlia, etc.). By the time women were admitted to the hallowed halls of taxonomy, it must have seemed natural for generic names based on personal names to end in -a, not -us. But there is no rule demanding this. As to generic names ending in the neuter plural -a, there are none. All generic names must be in the nominative singular (ICZN, Article 11g). Andrew K. Rindsberg Geological Survey of Alabama