Buteo swainsoni
BYOO-tee-oh SWAYN-soh-nye
Species
Swainson's Hawk
Literally: the hawk of Swainson
Buteo · genus
| Part | Meaning | Language | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Buteo | a kind of hawk | Latin (=buteo, -ni) | 3rd-declension Latin noun, masculine; stem buteōn-; used by Roman authors (e.g. Pliny) for a hawk or buzzard |
swainsoni · specific epithet
| Part | Meaning | Language | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Swainson- | William Swainson (1789–1855), British ornithologist and naturalist | Proper name (English) (Swainson) | Patronym; not a classical root |
| -i | genitive singular suffix meaning 'of' | Latin | Latin masculine genitive singular added to a surname ending in a consonant per ICZN convention; no gender agreement with genus required |
Buteo is a freestanding 3rd-declension Latin masculine noun serving as the genus name. The specific epithet swainsoni is a Latin genitive of a proper name ('of Swainson'), formed by appending -i to the surname. As a genitive noun it is not an adjective and therefore requires no gender agreement with the genus.
Pronunciation
- BYOO-tee-oh Three syllables; penult vowel e is short and followed by only the vowel o (not two consonants), so the penult is light; stress falls on the antepenult.
- SWAYN-soh-nye Three syllables; penult vowel o is short and followed by a single consonant n, so the penult is light; stress falls on the antepenult. The diphthong ai in swain is pronounced as long a ('ay'). Final -i is a long vowel pronounced 'eye'.
Swainson is a proper English surname and is not in the roots dictionary; it is identified from general knowledge with high confidence. The 'son' match returned by the dictionary (Latin sonus, 'sound') is a spurious overlap and has no bearing on this patronymic epithet. Author and year (Bonaparte, 1838) have been stripped per instructions.