I went looking for an online photo, finding nothing. And all I get for photos when I google Caenocara is the first species I photographed.

I can see that this one's pronotum has the same shape from above, and there is considerable agreement in the features seen from the side. There appears to be a major difference in relative eye size, however, and to some extent head size between these two species. Also, this one is not the fuzzball that the other is.


Okay, further searching reveals the species is listed as Caenocara tenuipalpis in the UNH checklist (no google info or images) and Caenocara tenuipalpum on Nearctica. The latter name yields a number of checklist mentions but no images. My guess is that Caenocara tenuipalpum is the correct name, but I'm still looking for an image other than mine.

See here and DON'T trust Nearctica with regards to species endings, they deliberately chose to ignore the code on this - one of many shortcomings.

In practical terms - the species ending can and often does change depending on the gender of the genus it is combined with.

In this case, the mismatch is more than gender, it's declension. The original noun is Latin palpus, which is a second declension/o-stem noun that normally converts into a regular feminine(-a) first-declension/masculine(-us) and neuter(-um) second declension adjective. Palpis, on the other hand, is in the form of a third declension/i-stem (feminine and masculine -is/neuter -e) noun.

By the way- in spite of ending in -a, Caenocara (from Greek καινο- + καρα) is neuter in gender.

I don't remember much from my Latin classes but constantly run into these exceptions in Spanish: el dia, el mapa, etc.

And Phillip, I'll heed your counsel on Nearctica.

Jim,
If you take nothing else from this, as clearly pointed out by Chuck (this is one area in which a degree in Linguistics is really valuable!), this isn't a simple 'spelling' question and finally, don't use Nearctica as the last word on these questions - they're not always wrong of course, but they did clearly state in the introduction that they saw no value in following the code on this - on balance, a bad idea.

Thank you, Don, for the ID! Moving to the guide page. Maybe this specimen was an 'escapee' when Jim was sorting through fungi:-)

but it wasn't *my* cieling light shade that I found it in. It was a customer's.