Romainvilla kazakhstanensis sp. nov. (1 Viewer)

Nikita V. Zelenkov, 2018

The Earliest Asian Duck (Anseriformes: Romainvilla) and the Origin of Anatidae

Doklady Biological Sciences, 2018, Vol. 483, pp. 225–227.

Abstract:

A new species of the extinct duck Romainvilla from the Upper Eocene of Kazakhstan is described. This is the earliest duck from Asia, the first record of Romainvilla beyond France and the first reliable evidence of the presence of Romainvillinae (regarded here as family) in Asia. This occurrence shows a wide range of Romainvilla and suggests a greater similarity of Late Eocene faunas of Western Europe and Asia than it was previously thought. The origin of Romainvillidae and their presumable descendants Anatidae may be connected with adaptation to a new biotope, the shallowing Late Eocene epicontinental Asian basins (due to a global decrease in sea level).

Free pdf: https://www.researchgate.net/public...formes_Romainvilla_and_the_Origin_of_Anatidae

Enjoy,

Fred

I have a problem with the name of the new species and I mailed my problem to Nikita Zelenkov:

I just downloaded your new paper: The Earliest Asian Duck (Anseriformes: Romainvilla) and the Origin of Anatidae and unfortunately I have to point out that the original genus name Lebedinsky gave to his duck is not Romainvilla, but Romainvillia and Lambrecht, 1933 also uses Romainvillia, strange enough Lambrecht, 1933 calls his subfamily Romainvillinae and not, as you would expect, Romainvilliinae. So I think the correct name of the new species is Romainvillia kazakhstanensis Zelenkov, 2018. I would like to know whether you agree with me.

With the best wishes for Christmas and the new year,

Fred Ruhe

Here is the answer by Nikita Zelenkov:

Dear Fred,
Thank you so much!! This is a very unfortunate typo! But the paper is not yet formally published. I will contact the editors to check if it may be corrected..

My best wishes back to you too!
nikita

SYSTEMATIC PALEONTOLOGY

Class: Aves Linnaeus, 1758
Order: Anseriformes Wagler, 1831
Family: Romainvillidae Lambrecht, 1933, rank nov. *
Genus: Romainvillia Lebedinsky, 1927 **
Romainvillia kazakhstanensis Zelenkov, sp. nov. **

Etymology: Genus: after the place where the type species, Romainvillia stehlini Lebedinsky, 1927, was found, Romainville east of Paris. Species: from Kazakhstan.

Holotype and locality: Holotype: PIN, no. 2612/3 proximal end left coracoid; Taizhuzgen locality (“Cherepakhovoe pole”), Kazakhstan, East Kazakhstan oblast, Zaisan Depression, Taizhuzgen River Basin; Kustovskaya Formation, Upper Eocene; collected by V.M. Chkhikvadze in 1980.

* Here I use the name coined by Lambrecht, 1933, placed in a new rank by Zelenkov (this paper), also see post #2. Perhaps Laurent can make clear what is the correct name.
** I use the corrected names.

Fred

References:

Kàlmàn Lambrecht, 1933
Handbuch der Palaeornithologie
Gebrüder Borntraeger, Berlin, 1024 pg.

N. G. Lebedinsky, 1927
Romainvillia stehlini n.g. n.sp. Canard Eocène Provenant des Marnes Blanches du Bassin de Paris
Memoires de la Société Paléontologique Suisse 47: 1-8

Fred

Today I received the corrected version of the paper.

It is not (yet) on researchgate. Also the family name has chanched so the systematic paleontology becomes:

Class: Aves Linnaeus, 1758,
Order: Anseriformes Wagler, 1831.
Family: Romainvilliidae Lambrecht, 1933, rank nov.
Genus: Romainvillia Lebedinsky, 1927
Romainvillia kazakhstanensis Zelenkov, sp. nov.

Fred

Fred Ruhe said:

Also the family name has changed

Click to expand...

I failed to find the OD of Romainvillia online, but that name appears to be formed from "Romainville", the name of the French type locality, and the Latin suffix -ia, genitive -iae. The "traditional" stem formation for the purposes of the Code, for of such a name, is governed by Art. 29.3.1: the stem is formed by deleting the case ending (here: -ae) from the genitive of the final component, which produces Romanvilli-. For a family name, the family ending -idae must then be added, which indeed produces Romainvilliidae.

Before 2000, this was the one and only correct way to form a family name from that generic name, and any spelling departing from this would have been to be corrected. Under the 4th ed. of the Code, things are a bit more complicated, though.
- Art. 29.4: For a family-group name established after 1999, the stem of a generic name can now be formed as if the name was neither Latin nor Greek (Art. 29.3.3), even if it does actually end in a Latin or Greek component. A stem so-formed by the author of a new family-group name is to be kept unchanged. Such a stem may be either the entire generic name, or the entire generic name with the ending elided, or one of these (but the French and English texts of the Code disagree on which) with one or more linking letters added. This does not concern Romainvilliidae, though, as the name was made available (simultaneously at all ranks of the family group owing to the Principle of Coordination) in 1933.
- Art. 29.5: For any family-group name (also older ones, thus), a stem in prevailing usage is always to be maintained -- even if the generic name is Latin or Greek, and the stem in prevailing usage was not formed according to 29.3.1. Thus if the -i- spellings were in very wide use and the -ii- spellings were not, those spellings might (but see below) have to be conserved. I don't think it is the case, however. (Google has more hits for the corrected Romainvilliinae than for the original Romainvillinae, both on the Web and in books.)

(In spite of the above, I actually have some reservations about the plain admissibility of the -i- spellings, even under 29.3.3 -- but this is, admittedly, not based on anything expressly stated in the Code. What disturbs me is that the Code does not actually define "ending" in the context of Art. 29.3.3; in particular, it does not expressly fix any limit to the length of such an "ending". This means that, from a strictly legalistic viewpoint, an absurdity like "Ridae" (formed by elision of the "ending" -omainvillia, leaving just R- as the stem) might in fact be OK, and potentially protected by Art. 29.4. I doubt this to have been the intent, however.
-ia, in Romainvillia, is the entire last linguistic component of the name (the suffix added to the stem of the French toponym), is one-and-a-half syllable, and includes more than one audible vowel; I am not really comfortable with calling this an "ending"...)

Thanks Laurent for your explanation.

For completeness sake I uploaded:

N. G. Lebedinsky, 1927
Romainvillia stehlini n.g. n.sp. Canard Eocène Provenant des Marnes Blanches du Bassin de Paris
Memoires de la Société Paléontologique Suisse 47: 1-8

Gerald Mayr, 2008
Phylogenetic Affinities and Morphology of the Late Eocene Anseriform Bird Romainvillia stehlini Lebedinsky, 1927
Neues Jahrbuch für Geologie and Paläontologie, Abhandlungen 248: 365-380

and the corrected version of Nikita Zelenkov, 2018

Nikita V. Zelenkov, 2018
The Earliest Asian Duck (Anseriformes: Romainvillia and the Origin of Anatidae
Doklady Biological Sciences 483: 225-227

Hope you like it,

Fred