Andy, Your welcome message to Wolfgang (which I would like to reiterate - Welcome to the group Wolfgang!) reminded me of a narrow taxonomic question that has been recurring to me for some time, and which hopefully might have a dull answer lurking in the pages of some obscure ICZN manual. Generally, the gender suffix on a species name (typically an adjective) matches that of the genus name (the noun it modifies). However, in many cases that is not true, for example: Cypraea cervus, Cypraea ovum, Pterygia conus, Phalium pila, Conus granum, Conus terebra, Marginella prunum, Modulus tectum, Natica vitellus. I have noticed that in many cases where the two endings do not match in gender (including the examples above), the specific name is not actually an adjective, but rather a second noun used as an adjective. (We do this all the time in english - bicycle rack, telephone pole, coffee cup, shell collection.) So, this leads me to suspect there must be some rule governing this situation, whereby a noun used as an adjective retains its own gender, rather than matching the gender of the primary noun. SO - my question is - is there? Regards, Paul M. Rhode Island