l_raty
laurent raty
The name gularis is available. (A "valid name" is defined in the ICZN is "the oldest potentially valid name of a name-bearing type which falls within an author's concept of the taxon" -- there is no validity of names that is not taxonomic.) The name gularis is also "potentially valid", because it is available and nothing makes it objectively invalid, i.e., invalid whatever the adopted taxonomy. (It's not "a junior homonym or a junior objective synonym of a potentially valid name, or [a name that] must be rejected under the provisions of the Code, or has been suppressed by the Commission".)
If (1) the resident blackcap populations of Cape Verde (or Cape Verde and Azores) are regarded as belonging to a subspecies distinct from continental Europe populations, and (2) the syntype specimens of gularis (collected on Santiago in Feb 1897, and that may be recognizable at their brown-stained throat) are regarded as belonging to this subspecies, then gularis should in principle be a valid name. If any of these two conditions is not fulfilled, it should be invalid.
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