Notiomystis
no-tee-oh-MIS-tis
Genus
Mystery of the south — an enigmatic bird of the southern lands
Literally: Southern mystery (or: southern moustache)
| Part | Meaning | Language | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| notio- | the south wind; the south | Greek (not, -o) | combining form noti-/notio-; here used in the sense 'southern' |
| -myst- | a mystery, secret rite | Greek (myst, -eri, -i, -o) | also myst, -ac / =ax meaning 'upper lip; a moustache' (see alternatives below) |
| -is | (noun-forming suffix) | Greek | standard Greek feminine noun ending used in New Latin genus names |
A New Latin genus name formed from two Greek combining forms plus the Greek feminine noun suffix -is. Notio- modifies myst-, giving a single compound noun. The name was applied by G. R. Gray (1845) to the stitchbird (hihi) of New Zealand, a rare and at the time poorly understood honeyeater of the southern hemisphere.
Pronunciation
- no-tee-oh-MIS-tis Penult rule 5: the penult vowel (y = short 'i') is followed by two consonants (st), so the penult is stressed.
Other readings
notio- + myst (mystax, 'upper lip / moustache') + -is → 'southern moustache', possibly referring to the male stitchbird's conspicuous white cheek-tufts or facial stripe; this reading is equally well supported by the dictionary and is favoured by some ornithologists
not- ('the back') + io- + myst-is is grammatically possible but yields no coherent meaning and is almost certainly wrong
Two Greek roots share the spelling myst-: (1) myst, -eri, -i, -o 'mystery, secret rite' and (2) myst, -ac, =ax 'upper lip, moustache'. Both are in the dictionary. Context slightly favours 'mystery' (a cryptic, rare southern bird) but ornithological usage often favours facial-marking names, so 'moustache' cannot be ruled out. The original describer left no explicit etymology. The root not- also appears in the dictionary as 'the back' (Greek nōton), but the combining form notio- unambiguously derives from notos 'south wind / south', which is the standard prefix in Southern Hemisphere bird genera (e.g. Notiornis, Notiocichla).