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Message: <blockquote data-quote="l_raty" data-source="post: 3611052" data-attributes="member: 24811">Currently <a href="http://www.hbw.com/dictionary/definition/caixana" target="_blank">the Key</a> gives:...thus making the specific name an apparent geographical adjective -- caixanus, -a, -um: from Caixas.According to <a href="https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caixanas" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a> (albeit admittedly in Portuguese only):...which makes Caixana, potentially at least, a (masculine -- note the article 'os') noun, completely unrelated to Caixas in Piauí. (The word may also be spelt Kaixana.)<a href="https://archive.org/stream/bub_br_1918_017354-09#page/n93/mode/2up" target="_blank">Spix 1824</a>, so far as I can see, didn't offer any hint as to what he intended this name to mean. However, he introduced it in combination with Aratinga, a name that he fully consistently treated as masculine everywhere else in his work -- combining it with such masculine adjectival species-group names as haemorrhous, chrysocephalus, luteus, xanthopterus, perlatus, fasciatus, aureus, but also referring to it consistently in the masculine in his Latin descriptions: he described Aratinga as a group as macrurus; and the various species he listed (on a quick check -- I may have overlooked some) as majusculus, aureo-luteus, coccineus, miniaceo-aurantius, variegatus, immaculatus, medius.And then suddenly this caixana that would be a feminine adjective...?<a href="https://archive.org/stream/bub_br_1918_017354-09#page/n149/mode/2up" target="_blank">Spix 1824</a> also used caixana in combination with Macropus, a genus that he only also combined with the species name phasianellus, which is a noun. However, this name ends in a latinisation of πους (foot), masculine in Greek, and ends in -us, the usual masculine ending in Latin; and Spix described the genus as cuculinus, and the species as, respectively, olivaceo-fuscus and castaneus, all masculine.So here again, caixana being feminine makes no real sense.To my knowledge, there are no other uses of this word in avian nomenclature.(There is a bit more than the etymology at stake here, actually. Currently Aratinga is treated as feminine because this is the default for names ending in -a in the absence of indication provided by the author, and because Spix is regarded as having given contradictory indications about the gender he intended for this generic name, which in turn rests entirely on caixana being a feminine adjective. Should caixana be a noun, the contradiction would vanish, everything in the OD would indicate that Aratinga is masculine, and it would in principle have to be treated as such.Macropus Spix is available but preoccupied by Macropus Shaw (masculine), which is in use for kangaroos, hence it can't become valid and its gender is of no practical importance.)</blockquote>

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