142 Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature 62(3) September 2005 Case 3328 Didelphis Linnaeus, 1758 (Mammalia, didelphidae): proposed correction of gender, and Cryptotis Pomel, 1848 (Mammalia, soricidae): proposed fixation of gender Alfred L. Gardner USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, P.O. Box 37012, Washington, D.C., 20013-7012 U.S.A. (e-mail:
[email protected]) Abstract. The purpose of this application, under Article 80.9 of the Code, is to emend the entry on the Official List of Generic Names in Zoology to correct the gender of the nominal genus Didelphis Linnaeus, 1 758 from masculine to feminine, as originally used by Linnaeus. It is proposed that the gender of the nominal genus Cryptotis Pomel, 1848 is fixed as masculine. Keywords. Nomenclature; taxonomy; Soricomorpha; didelphidae; soricidae; Didelphis; Cryptotis; mammals. Gender of the genus-group name Didelphis: 1. Linnaeus (1758, pp. 54-55) established the nominal genus Didelphis and included five species: marsiipialis, philander, opossuuu nmrimi and dorsigera. These species-group names are currently used as follows: Didelphis marsupialis, Caluromys philander. Philander opossum and Marmosa nnirina. Didelphis dorsigera is a synonym of Marmosa murina. No gender was given when Didelphis was placed on the Official List of Generic Names in Zoology (Opinion 91, ICZN, 1926), but subsequently its gender was given as masculine in the first comprehensive Official List of Generic Names in Zoology (ICZN, 1958). It may be suggested that when the latter list was prepared, the gender was based on that of the Greek word delphis, which is masculine. Linnaeus (1758) clearly intended Didelphis to be feminine, however, which gave rise to the commonly used variant spelling Didelphys (e.g. Schreber, 1777; Wied-Neuwied, 1826; Wagner, 1843; Burmeister, 1854; Thomas, 1888). These and other authors presumably used the incorrect subsequent spelling Didelphys because it unambiguously expresses Linnaeus's meaning of Didelphis as 'two wombs' (an allusion to an internal womb and the external marsupium; obviously feminine), not 'two Delphi' (masculine), or 'two dolphins' (masculine). Mondolfi & Perez-Hernandez (1984) described Didelphis albiventris imperfectus as masculine, because Didelphis is identified as masculine on the Official List (ICZN, 1958, 1987). Most authors today follow Gardner (1993) in writing the name in the feminine form, imperfecta (e.g. Voss & Emmons, 1996; Lemos & Cerqueira, 2002). It is therefore proposed that the entry on the Official List is emended to record that the gender of Didelphis Linnaeus, 1758 is feminine.
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