-------- Original Message --------
Subject: RE: [NABOKV-L] camel-hair, Kamelspinner, Odon and Damselfies
Date: Thu, 01 Feb 2007 21:40:47 -0500
From: Fet, Victor <fet@marshall.edu>
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
References: A <01bf01c74616$588f0020$6601a8c0@jansyuww9tl3no>


The biologist's reply to Jansy:

(1) "odon(t-, to-)" means "tooth" in Greek (equivalent to Latinate "dens", "dent-") and is used in innumerable animal names, from Odonticeti (toothed whales) to Smilodon (saber-toothed cat) to Anodonta ("toothless" mollusk shell) as well as in dental terminology ("parodontosis").

Order Odonata (Russ. strekozy, Engl. Damsel- and Dragonflies) are indeed named so because of their robust mandibles (jaws), and this name means simply "toothed".

Whether Odon of PF has any "tooth" relevance I do not know, but "Odon" is Swedish (and surely in Zemblan as well) for Vaccinium uliginosum, the Northern Bilberry, Russ. Golubika.

Or, this name could also have been possibly borrowed from Ödön (Edmund Josef) von Horváth (1901-1938), "one of the most important German-language playwrights and authors of the twentieth century" (Wikipedia).

Or it could be a corruption of "Odeon".

(2) Ptilodon capucina, a moth known in English incredibly as "Coxcomb Prominent"
(according to Wikipedia, its "lumpy" appearance has led to the rather fanciful comparison to the comb on a cock's head), has another name ("junior synonym") Ptilodon camelina, thus Kamelspinner.

Since this is a free-living moth, it has nothing to do with a "moth" which could be eating Dreyer's camel-wool coat.

Victor Fet



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