Musca maura Linnaeus, 1758
Hemipenthes maura (Linnaeus, 1758) (incorrect gender, see below)
Hemipenthes maurus (Linnaeus, 1758) (incorrect gender, see below)
Hemipenthes maurum (Linnaeus, 1758)
Musca denigrata Linnaeus, 1767
Nomotelvs nonvs Schaeffer, 1768 (unavailable name)
Musca hirsuta De Villers, 1789
Anthrax daemon Panzer, 1797
Anthrax bifasciata Meigen, 1804
Anthrax relata Walker, 1852
Anthrax uncinus Loew, 1869
Hemipenthes maurus flavotomentosa Paramonov, 1927
The grammatical gender of the genus name is debated controversially.
Most current authors regard it as feminine, but this is incorrect as discussed by Prpic (2016).
The name is composed of two Greek words, "hemi" ("half") and
"penthos" ("sorrow"). Since the genus name is not "Hemipenthos", but
"Hemipenthes", the unusual ending has to be explained. There is a
analogous word in Plinius´ Naturalis historia (book 25, chapter 2): the
name "Nepenthes" is used by
Plinius for a magical ingredient that, when mixed with wine, drives all
sorrows away
("ne - penthes" = "no - sorrows"). Plinius derives the name for this
ingredient from a description in Homer´s Odyssey, but Homer never uses a
specific name for the magical ingredient, he just writes "nepenthes
pharmakon" which translates as "pain-relieving substance". Thus,
"nepenthes" is an adjective ("pain-relieving") that takes the neutral form
simply because of the neutral noun "pharmakon" that is refers to. It is
then latinized by Plinius, who nominalises the word, but keeps the
neutral ending and grammatical gender ("The Nepenthes"). Thus, in
analogy to "Nepenthes", also "Hemipenthes" should be regarded as a
neutral noun (see Article 30.1.3. of the Code for the gender of latinized
greek words).
|
