Brentidae (Coleoptera) genus misspelled?

Good questions

There are two issues: first of all, should the genus be spelled Arrenodes or Arrhenodes? Second, should the tribe be spelled Arrenodini or Arrenodini?

The first is easier (but not that easy) to answer. The original spelling is the correct spelling unless it can be shown to be wrong in ways that are spelled out in the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature. The ICZN explicitly says that errors in transliteration or latinization don't count.

the letter rho in ancient Greek is supposed to be written with a "rough breathing" at the beginning of a word and as the second of a pair of rhos. The "rough breathing" is a diacritical mark used to indicate the "h" sound in ancient Greek when it's in front of a vowel, but its use in front of the letter rho seems to have been just a spelling rule in classical times. Even so, the word-initial rough breathing is pretty much universally accepted as correct. That's why the letter is rho and not ro. The rough breathing on the second of two rhos is a more obscure part of the spelling rule, and is often overlooked.

Here's where it gets tricky: the rough breathing is often left out when transliterating or latinizing ancient Greek. If the missing "h" is because of that, there's no question of it making the generic name incorrect according to the ICZN. If the missing "h" is because the original Greek word was misspelled, one could make an argument that it might be enough to require emendation. I don't buy it, though. Neither the old standard Liddell & Scott lexicon, nor the Perseus online dictionary based on it bother with the double-rho rule. You do see derivatives like "arrhenotoky" that show the "h" where you would expect it.

As far as I can see from the ICZN (rule 35.4.1), the tribe should take its spelling from the genus, but there might be an exemption for prevailing usage. In that case, it would be a matter of the tribe having a stronger case for prevailing usage than the genus.

The ICZN rules about emendations and prevailing usage are rather arcane in places, and it's possible, though, that I'm missing something.

… Chuck Entz, 20 March, 2011 - 6:44pm

current refs-->Arrenodes

Changing it to Arrenodes, as that is used in current references (1) (2).
American Beetles (3) gives the name as Arrenodes Schönherr 1823. It lists Arrhenodes Schönherr 1826 as a junior synonym or whatever.
It gives the tribe as Arrhenodini Lacordaire 1866. Currently the genus is in tribe Brentini here on BugGuide and I'm not going to mess with that. I don't feel tribes with only one species serve any purpose on BugGuide, but if somebody wants to make a new tribe and shuffle the taxonomy for consistency, fine.

… Cotinis, 11 May, 2021 - 11:15am

Impressively illuminating

but looks like we're still at square one ;-) I'd probably get by in Ecuador with Arrenodes since it's common enough in Spanish-speaking countries to drop the "H" in words where it serves no purpose. They would roll that double "R" like a machine gun sound.

… Jim McClarin, 20 March, 2011 - 7:25pm

Square Two

I would say Arrenodes is a pretty safe bet- at the very least you have an authoritative online source (the Brentidae list- not me!) saying it's correct. I have a hunch the tribe might be correct, but not a very solid one...

… Chuck Entz, 20 March, 2011 - 9:08pm

Thanks, Chuck.

I think I'll seek the input of our main beetle guy before doing anything rash. That would be Belov.

… Jim McClarin, 20 March, 2011 - 9:43pm