Taxonomy in-flux updates (1 Viewer)

[Jim LeNomenclatoriste]

Morus Vieillot 1816 : Analyse d'une nouvelle ornithologie élémentaire
No originally included nominal species cited by an available name ("Fou de Bassan" does not qualify).
First inclusion of nominal species in Vieillot 1817 : t.12 (1817) - Nouveau dictionnaire d'histoire naturelle - Biodiversity Heritage Library
Nominal species eligible to become the type : Morus sula, M. bassanus, M. piscator, M. parvus.
The type is Pelecanus sula Linnaeus 1766 by subsequent designation of Ogilvie-Grant 1898.

A list of the genera of birds - Biodiversity Heritage Library

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Catalogue of the genera and subgenera of birds contained in the British Museum - Biodiversity Heritage Library

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Gray (1840 and 1855) included Morus in the synonymy of Sula. Shouldn't the two genera carry the same type species?

 

[l_raty]

Gray (1840 and 1855) included Morus in the synonymy of Sula. Shouldn't the two genera carry the same type species?

No. To fix the type of a genus-group name, you need a type designation, i.e., a statement that a given nominal species is the type of this name. Placing a name in the synonymy of another one does not make the type of the former the same as that of the latter (even if you designate a type for the valid name simultaneously).

Note that Gray, in 1840, also placed Pelecanus L. in the synonymy of Sula: this was merely a way to indicate that Linnaeus had placed the type of Sula in a broad Pelecanus, and was certainly not intended to be a statement about the type of the latter. Gray designated onocrotalus as the type of Pelecanus L. a bit lower down on the same page.

 

[Jim LeNomenclatoriste]

No. To fix the type of a genus-group name, you need a type designation, i.e., a statement that a given nominal species is the type of this name. Placing a name in the synonymy of another one does not make the type of the former the same as that of the latter (even if you designate a type for the valid name simultaneously).

Note that Gray, in 1840, also placed Pelecanus L. in the synonymy of Sula: this was merely a way to indicate that Linnaeus had placed the type of Sula in a broad Pelecanus, and was certainly not intended to be a statement about the type of the latter. Gray designated onocrotalus as the type of Pelecanus L. a bit lower down on the same page.

Didn't we talk about a similar case some time ago? I don't know if it was with Myiophila

 

[l_raty]

Didn't we talk about a similar case some time ago? I don't know if it was with Myiophila

It's likely that we discussed a few similar case over the years.

The case of Myiophila is slightly different, because this name had been made available by Reichenbach in 1850 with an illustration only, without associating any nominal species to it.
Reichenbach's illustration quite clearly showed a Pied Water Tyrant (now Fluvicola pica (Boddaert)). In 1855, Gray cited Myiophila in the synonymy of Arundinicola, for which he simultaneously designated Todus leucocephalus Pallas (which is the White-headed Marsh Tyrant) as a type. There are no reasons to think that Gray mixed up the two species -- more likely, he simply regarded them as congeneric, which to him made the two genus-group names subjective synonyms. But : by designating Todus leucocephalus Pallas as the type of Arundinicola and making Myiophila a synonym of the latter, Gray 1855 de facto included this nominal species in a genus to which the name Myiophila also applied. As Reichenbach had failed to include any nominal species in Myiophila when making available, and no other author had supplied one in the intervening period, this arguably made Todus leucocephalus Pallas the type of Myiophila, not by subsequent designation, but by subsequent monotypy.

 

[Jim LeNomenclatoriste]

It's likely that we discussed a few similar case over the years.

The case of Myiophila is slightly different, because this name had been made available by Reichenbach in 1850 with an illustration only, without associating any nominal species to it.
Reichenbach's illustration quite clearly showed a Pied Water Tyrant (now Fluvicola pica (Boddaert)). In 1855, Gray cited Myiophila in the synonymy of Arundinicola, for which he simultaneously designated Todus leucocephalus Pallas (which is the White-headed Marsh Tyrant) as a type. There are no reasons to think that Gray mixed up the two species -- more likely, he simply regarded them as congeneric, which to him made the two genus-group names subjective synonyms. But : by designating Todus leucocephalus Pallas as the type of Arundinicola and making Myiophila a synonym of the latter, Gray 1855 de facto included this nominal species in a genus to which the name Myiophila also applied. As Reichenbach had failed to include any nominal species in Myiophila when making available, and no other author had supplied one in the intervening period, this arguably made Todus leucocephalus Pallas the type of Myiophila, not by subsequent designation, but by subsequent monotypy.

Ok

But regarding the names of Brisson, they cannot be rejected and I don't know if each of his names is a special case. We should have invented the principle of Brissonian tautonymy, instead of tautonymy.

It's all really complicated and I was never really interested in all aspects of the Code