Peter Kovalik
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Aphrastura (1 Viewer)
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Peter Kovalik
Well-known member
Aphrastura masafuerae
Gonzalez, J. 2014. Phylogenetic position of the most endangered Chilean bird: the Masafuera Rayadito (Aphrastura masafuerae; Furnariidae). Tropical Conservation Science Vol.7 (4): 677-689. Available online:
www.tropicalconservationscience.org
PDF
Gonzalez, J. 2014. Phylogenetic position of the most endangered Chilean bird: the Masafuera Rayadito (Aphrastura masafuerae; Furnariidae). Tropical Conservation Science Vol.7 (4): 677-689. Available online:
www.tropicalconservationscience.org
mb1848
Well-known member
Sclater in an 1871 Ibis states that masafuerae, "...In Wiegmann's Archiv the specific term is misspelt masafucrae." Has anyone fixed this? Do they need to?
http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/31351#page/135/mode/1up .
In the OD the authors misspell the island as Masafucra.
http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/31351#page/135/mode/1up .
In the OD the authors misspell the island as Masafucra.
Peter Kovalik
Well-known member
Dickinson & Christidis, 2014. H&M4, vol2: Aphrastura masafucrae - Original spelling; no internal evidence permits emendation.
Nutcracker
Stop Brexit!
Has anyone else ever used that spelling since 1866? Isn't there some ICZN ruling that regards ancient neglected spellings as officially 'forgotten' after a long period of no use?
Certainly should be such a provision, it doesn't help with nomenclatural stability at all to suddenly bring up an unused 140-year old typo as an official correction.
l_raty
laurent raty
Of course, there are such provisions: if an emended spelling is in prevailing usage, returning to the unemended spelling is forbidden. The problem is that the Code is not clear about what "prevailing usage" is. In reaction to this, H&M (unilaterally) decided not to apply these provisions at all.
Not only doesn't it help with stability but, in this particular cases, it invites misspellings (you simply cannot hope that the name of a "Masafuera Something" inhabiting "Masafuera Island", will be spelled "masafucrae" consistently; this is so obviously wrong that a significant proportion of the users of the name are unavoidably going to correct the error on their own, even if the spelling gets sanctified by the rules): as such it could be viewed as a thread to universality of nomenclature.
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l_raty
laurent raty
Something along those lines could of course have happened at some point, but not within this work. The spelling is consistent:
Clearly, someone believed that it had to be written with a c, instead of an e.
(That the original spelling is "masafucrae", and that "no internal evidence permits emendation", is unquestionable. However, the latter concerns the hypothetical case that an author would decide to emend the name now; in practice, emendation has already occurred.)
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mb1848
Well-known member
S. masafuerae in use since 1892. The article about the types of the Chile natural history museum describes masafucrae as lapsus.
http://issuu.com/mnhn_cl/docs/boletin-013/16 .
http://issuu.com/mnhn_cl/docs/boletin-013/16 .
l_raty
laurent raty
But your reference to Sclater 1871 is older. Also Reed 1874, Salvin 1875, Sclater 1890, Dubois 1902, Philippi 1902 (one of the original authors), Cory & Hellmayr 1925, Peters 1951...
(Nutcracker may well be correct that nobody ever used the OS between the OD and 2014.)
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mb1848
Well-known member
"Sclater 1871 is older. Also Reed 1874, Salvin 1875, Sclater 1890, Dubois 1902, Philippi 1902 (one of the original authors), Cory & Hellmayr 1925, Peters 1951..."
Huh, its almost like masafuerae is the prevailing usage.
The Sclater 1890 cite took me to an 1868 Anales de la Universidad de Chile article which uses masafuerae. Authored by original describer Philippi.
http://www.anales.uchile.cl/index.php/ANUC/article/viewFile/20963/22164 .
Huh, its almost like masafuerae is the prevailing usage.
The Sclater 1890 cite took me to an 1868 Anales de la Universidad de Chile article which uses masafuerae. Authored by original describer Philippi.
http://www.anales.uchile.cl/index.php/ANUC/article/viewFile/20963/22164 .
l_raty
laurent raty
I'd think it reasonably likely that the name was always intended by its authors to be written masafuerae.
Maybe the spelling was ambiguous in the manuscript they sent to Germany? In this case, the editor would have selected the spelling that he thought most likely to have been intended, and used this spelling consistently in the work.
Maybe the spelling was ambiguous in the manuscript they sent to Germany? In this case, the editor would have selected the spelling that he thought most likely to have been intended, and used this spelling consistently in the work.
l_raty
laurent raty
Botero-Delgadillo, Quirici, Poblete, Cuevas, Kuhn, Girg, Teltscher, Poulin, Kempenaers, Vásquez. 2017. Variation in fine-scale genetic structure and local dispersal patterns between peripheral populations of a South American passerine bird. Ecol. Evol. 7(20):8363-8378.
[whole paper]
[whole paper]
Peter Kovalik
Well-known member
Paul Clapham
Well-known member
Early voting on that proposal is pretty much the same as the posts in this thread from 2014, namely "NO" with similar reasoning.
To my mind, those who feel strongly about this should make a case for the ICZN to make a stronger case that prevailing usage needs to be recognized. They could use this as a test case asking that the original spelling be set aside and ask for a more general statement at the same time.
Niels
l_raty
laurent raty
I'm not sure that a case which has the potential to be readily solved by applying the Code would be very likely to be accepted by the Commission, unless there was a real fight going on. I suspect the answer would be a polite "We are busy people, this is not an issue causing major problems, and you don't really need us to solve it".
Also, note that dealing with a particular case usually results in an Opinion, and the Code prevents Opinions to have any effect beyond the case they apply to.
See also in the Introduction:
I.e., if you submit a case "asking that the original spelling be set aside", you can not, actually, "ask for a more general statement at the same time".
There are other mechanisms in the Code that, in principle, make it possible for the Commission, either to clarify the meaning of some words in the Code, or to amend the Code temporarily, but this would have to be done outside of a submitted case. And I don't think it would be likely to succeed either -- this is not really an issue that would be easily dealt with by just clarifying the meaning of some words in the Code, and waiting for the next edition of the Code to provide a real improvement of the rules would be more efficient than to attempt a quick and temporary fix.
From the SACC proposal:
Niels
If you read the comments to the proposal there seems to be people feeling strongly that Dickinson and Christidis in doing this is violating the code. The risk is that their publication could change what the prevailing usage is. That is why I feel that those who feel so strongly (as seen in the comments) should raise a case for the commission to stop what they see as violation of the code.
Niels
Peter Kovalik
Well-known member
DID NOT PASS
