Disputatio:Ailuropoda melanoleuca

Ailuropoda melanoleuca fuit Translatio Hebdomadalis.

Greek

I think putting those two pretend Greek words in there is misleading -- it suggests that they are either the original of, or on an equal footing with, the Latin. But they aren't -- surely a Wikipedian has made them up. Where said Wikipedian got the singular noun element -ποδα and the singular adjectival -λευκα I don't know. Note that the Greek wiki offers a translation of the scientific name as "Αιλουρόπους ο μελανόλευκος", which is at least real katharevousa Greek, but not (I'd say) relevant to us.

Adding a translation of the two words as a phrase is misleading too, because scientific Latin binomials are not necessarily to be taken as a meaningful phrase: the naming of a genus and the naming of species are separate, and the species epithet may stand whether the genus name is retained or changes.

It's right, of course, to give explanations of the Greek elements in the scientific name, but it's maybe better done in the names section, not in the first sentence? Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 16:06, 12 Ianuarii 2015 (UTC)

Yes, you're right, I didn't look into that thoroughly. OK now? It's really too bad that Milne-Edwards didn't use Aeluropus. It seems that some later zoologists did, but Ailuropoda prevailed because it was the earliest. Lesgles (disputatio) 17:07, 12 Ianuarii 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for humouring me :) I agree 100% about Ailuropoda. I didn't know that it had been allowed to overrule Aeluropus. Yes, unfortunately for sensitive Latinists, the naming rules do sometimes produce that result. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 17:13, 12 Ianuarii 2015 (UTC)