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Luhuanus
Collectors who do not understand Latin and Greek will possibly be interested in the meaning of the scientific names of some
well known cowry species. Most scientific names are Latin, but a few are Greek (marked by an asterisk *) or even other
languages (marked by two asterisks **). Most names can easily be understood, but a few need further explanation. These have
been put in brackets. If we restrict the explanations to living species and well recognizable subspecies of true cowries
(Cypraeidae), and omit the hundreds of varietal names and synonyms of minor importance, we can arrange the scientific names
according to their meaning as follows:
1. Most names refer to the characters of the shells;
There are some general designations, as gracilisgraceful, pericalles*very beautiful, pulchellarather beautiful (not: [a]
small pulchra!), pulchrabeautiful, stolidafoolish, vastacoarse, and venustacharming like Venus. Far more names refer to
the size: immanisvery large, or are descriptions of the general shape: angustatanarrowed, colobastunted,
cylindricacylindrical, depressadepressed, latiorbroader, pyriformispear shaped, teresoblong, tortirostriswith a tortuous
beak. Some names recall peculiarities in morphology: acicularisneedle shaped (referring to the lateral pittings),
edentulanot denticulate, erosaeroded (at the margins), esontropia*keeled within, eunota*with solid dorsum (more probably
than badly compounded by eu*well and notusknown), granulatagranulate, marginalis and marginatamargined, microdon*small
tooth (with small teeth), minoridenssmaller tooth (with smaller teeth), obvelatasurrounded by a sail, semiplotahalf ...
(not intelligible, possibly misspelled for semipolitarather polished), serruliferabearing a small saw (in front of the
columella), sulcidentatawith furrow-like teeth.
Shellers tend to panic when they see a Latin name for a shell. On the other hand scientists are apt to be contemptuous of
common names. Between these extremes is the amateur conchologist who is interested in the scientific names and wants to know
their correct pronunciation and etymology. Most books in this field are of little help. Abbottl and Keen2 treat the subject
only briefly.
As amateur conchologists we thought it might allay the apprehensions of fellow shell-club members if there were a condensed
guide to the pronunciation of Latin names. As we recalled our Latin from school it was based on rules and there was an
accepted, correct way to pronounce the letters. Apparently this was also the premise of the Landfears who discussed this
subject. 3 Preparing such a guide did not seem to ambitious an undertaking.
Imagine our surprise to learn that there are three methods of Latin pronunciation in the United States --- the Roman, the
Continental, and the English. 4, 5 The Roman is the one with which we were familiar and had believed to be the accepted
method. The Continental method is used only in the ritual of the Roman Catholic Church. In the English method, letters are
pronounced precisely as they would be in English. This last method has become the practice of English-speaking scientists.
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luhuanus
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