Talk:Bridges's degu

Move

Why was the article moved? "Bridges's Degu" is grammatically correct (ignoring for the moment the capitalization issue). Admittedly there's a dispute among language folks as to whether to add the final "s" in these situations, but the page was grammatically correct according to half of that community and the only reference cited on the page uses "Bridges's Degu". I suspect the page will ultimately end up at Octodon bridgesi as an instance where the vernacular name is not the common name, but I did want to voice my objection to a move that, as far as I can see, just places the page at a less appropriate location. --Aranae (talk) 23:53, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

We discussed this - to some extent - at User talk:Degutopia. I agree that this should probably be moved to Octodon bridgesi. Even when all common names are considered together, it fails the double fives test (which I, admittedly, just invented, but which reflects emerging practice as far as I am aware). Ucucha 00:24, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Bridges

This article apparently links to the wrong Bridges--Thomas Bridges (Anglican missionary) was born in about 1842, so I doubt that Waterhouse named a species after him in 1845. Ucucha 13:29, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I've done some digging around about this, and it seems to be quite a common mistake. The correct Thomas Bridges was an English botanist/specimen collector who I've managed to discover some information on, I'll create a new page for him since he's had several plant species named after him as well. I've corrected the main article. Degutopia (talk) 15:14, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Good, thanks! Ucucha 15:21, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Latin name

Could I ask why the Latin species name is listed here as O. bridgesi rather than O. bridgesii as it seems to be with other species named after Thomas Bridges? Just wondering if there's some reason or if it's a mistake- Waterhouse originally listed it as O. bridgesii. Degutopia (talk) 15:58, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Mammal Species of the World, 3rd edition, lists it as O. bridgesi; I think we should follow that unless we have someone making an explicit nomenclatural comment that bridgesii is correct instead. If O. bridgesii was the spelling originally used by Waterhouse, it is technically correct, though (ICZN Art. 33.4). Ucucha 16:07, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

The Reference in MSW 3rd ed is for the 1845 proceedings of the ZSL, I have a copy of the original paper uploaded to my server so you can take a look at the original reference, in particular pages 4 and 5. Degutopia (talk) 17:28, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I had found some references with Google Books that brought me to the same conclusion. But I think my point stands that we should be following the MSW3 spelling here (even though it's technically incorrect) until someone publishes a paper to correct the speling. Ucucha 17:32, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Aha, I've just been in touch with the publisher of MSW, Johns Hopkins University Press, who were extremely helpful. They forwarded my question to Don Wilson, Chairman of Vertebrate Zoology at the Smithsonian Institution, who said:

"JHU Press passed along your inquiry and you are correct; it should be O. bridgesii and not the abridged version with a single i."

I presume this will be amended in the next edition of MSW. What a good result! Degutopia (talk) 16:30, 3 December 2009 (UTC)