Gentoo Penguin possible future split into 4 species (1 Viewer)

[Nutcracker]

If I read the blog correct, these taxa can only be correctly identified when using DNA?

Or (if at a breeding colony), by a combination of latitude & longitude coordinates :t:

 

[Jacana]

If I read the blog correct, these taxa can only be correctly identified when using DNA?

They can be differentiated on size and bill shape but no plumage or colouration differences.

Whether those size differences are easy to pick out in the field, or whether you need to have them in the hand is another matter.

 

[njlarsen]

The blog states that many individuals cannot be identified to group based on measurements alone. Whether that would be true if three principal components had been plotted rather than only two I do not know.

Niels

 

[PScofield]

Regarding Pygoscelis poncetii sp. nov

The IUZN code states:

32.5. Spellings that must be corrected (incorrect original spellings)

"32.5.1. If there is in the original publication itself, without recourse to any external source of information, clear evidence of an inadvertent error, such as a lapsus calami or a copyist's or printer's error, it must be corrected. Incorrect transliteration or latinization, or use of an inappropriate connecting vowel, are not to be considered inadvertent errors."

It is often stated that the wrong gender of an honorific should be corrected but given the wording of the above should it? This error is clearly incorrect latinization surely...

Anyway, let us say it should be ammended, I am interested to discover what the 2012 amendments to the ICZN code actually mean:

• Have fixed content and layout (Article 8.1.3.2)
• be issued after 2011 (Article. 8.5.1)
• state the date of publication within the work itself (Article 8.5.2)
• be published in a work with an ISBN or ISSN (Article 8.5.3.2)
• be registered in the Official Register of Zoological Nomenclature(i.e. ZooBank)(Article 8.5.3)
• contain evidence in the work itself that such registration has occurred (Article8.5.3)
• be registered with the name and Internet address of an organization other than the publisher that is intended to permanently archive the work (Article 8.5.3.1)

So yes the publication meets ALL of these requirements and has a Zoobank registration:

Zoobank Registry: urn:lsid:zoobank.orgub:0DADF56F‐ADD6‐4A4C‐A1DF‐C18187700EF2

But how do the authors amend the name?

The Code says 32.5.1.1. "The correction of a spelling of a name in a publisher's or author's corrigendum issued simultaneously with the original work or as a circulated slip to be inserted in the work (or if in a journal, or work issued in parts, in one of the parts of the same volume) is to be accepted as clear evidence of an inadvertent error.

Examples. If an author in proposing a new species-group name were to state that he or she was naming the species after Linnaeus, yet the name was published as ninnaei, it would be an incorrect original spelling to be corrected to linnaei. Enygmophyllum is not an incorrect original spelling (for example of Enigmatophyllum) solely on the grounds that it was incorrectly transliterated or latinized."

So does that mean they can simply alter the Zoobank registration and amend the publication accordingly? Or do they have to just start again with a new publication?

Interested to hear what the experts think...

P

 

[njlarsen]

I never understood the demand mentioned that corrections should be published in the same volume. Some journals have a volume for every couple of months while some books have one volume published over a decade. I feel the minimum time for an appropriate amendment is one year. The current system, if taken by the letter is some cases completely exclude any amendments

Niels

 

[Nutcracker]

..., such as a lapsus calami ...

Since penguins eat a lot of squid, it must be a lapsus calamari here


:king:

 

[Norbert R.]

I tried to find the new species Pygoscelis poncetii in ZooBank, but neither was there an entry under that scientific name nor under the ZooBank number given in the paper. Thus, I conclude that the name is not available, whatever the reasons are that led to the failure of registration.

 

[l_raty]

I tried to find the new species Pygoscelis poncetii in ZooBank, but neither was there an entry under that scientific name nor under the ZooBank number given in the paper. Thus, I conclude that the name is not available, whatever the reasons are that led to the failure of registration.

This is quite usual for names that are just published.
ZooBank will not let you see the entry as long as its content not wholly finalized, which requires adding *actual* publication details, which are not known before the publication has occurred. This does not necessarily mean that the entry is not there.
If you need to be sure, you should either contact the authors, asking them to finalize the registration, or contact someone who is involved in ZooBank (e.g., Rich Pyle).

 

[DDonsker]

Why poncetii is ending by two i instead of one ?

This recently received from Dick Schodde:

"The spelling of Poncetii. It is a surname, not a christian name. Even though it may commemorate a woman, the authors treat the name as Latin, not latinized, e.g. Poncetius, not Ponceta or Poncetus. If it is Poncetius, Latin, then the genitive must be poncetii, in according with the gender of the Latin word Poncetius, not the name of the woman, Sally Poncet. That is how I interpret Art. 31.1.1 and its example – see Nicolaus Poda. Had they used the spelling ponceti, a latinization of Poncet, then it would have had to be poncetae".

 

[l_raty]

This recently received from Dick Schodde:

"The spelling of Poncetii. It is a surname, not a christian name. Even though it may commemorate a woman, the authors treat the name as Latin, not latinized, e.g. Poncetius, not Ponceta or Poncetus. If it is Poncetius, Latin, then the genitive must be poncetii, in according with the gender of the Latin word Poncetius, not the name of the woman, Sally Poncet. That is how I interpret Art. 31.1.1 and its example – see Nicolaus Poda. Had they used the spelling ponceti, a latinization of Poncet, then it would have had to be poncetae".

- In "podae" formed from the name of Nicolaus Poda, the unmodified name "Poda" is treated as if it was a Latin word. We have nothing comparable to this here.
- "poncetii" can indeed be seen as the genitive of "Poncetius", but "Poncetius" is unquestionably a latinization of "Poncet". (I.e., it is the name "Poncet", modified so as to give it "Latin form and characteristics (including a Latin ending or a Latin suffix)"; see the Glossary. Here this is done through an added -ius ending. "Poncetius" is not a Latin word -- www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/resolveform?type=start&lookup=poncetius&lang=la.)
- "ponceti" might be either seen as formed under 31.1.2, being the genitive of "Poncetus", another latinization of the name "Poncet", formed through the addition of a Latin -us ending; or it might be seen as formed under 31.1.1, being the stem of the modern name Poncet with an -i ending added "mechanistically" to it. Names formed according to these two methods do not differ; in most cases, it is perfectly impossible to tell which path an author actually followed; if some names now have to be corrected if formed under one method but not if formed under the other, we are in big trouble.

Art. 32.3 of the current ICZN states that the correct original spelling of a name is always to be preserved unaltered; Art. 32.2 states that the original spelling of a name is always correct unless it is demonstrably incorrect as provided in Art. 32.5; Art. 32.5 does not list violations of Art. 31.1 as making an original spelling correctable. Ergo, the letter of the Code quite clearly forbids to alter names formed in violation of Art. 31.1.
However:
Such violations were unquestionably to be corrected under the 3 first editions of the Code. The editorial process that led to the 4th ed was unusual in that the initial drafts made the Code basically grammar-less (with all the provisions linked to Latin grammar deleted); the drafts remained so almost to the last moment, at which point it was finally decided to keep the grammar in after all, and 31.1 (together with quite lot of other things which had been erased) was reincorporated. It seems quite likely that the absence of reference to violations of 31.1 under 32.5 is the result of an omission in this last-moment reincorporation. The wording of 31.1 also suggests that its provisions were not intended to be force-less, which they are if violations cannot be corrected. Ergo, the spirit of the Code may be read as making violations of Art. 31.1 correctable.

Choose your poison...

 

[PScofield]

Laurent, Thank you for this excellent summary!

One issue I had found however that may be important:

I tend to agree that "Poncetius" is not a Latin word BUT Poncetus is - a nominative masculine form of the gens PONCE.

I assume Ponce is also the origin of the name Pontius Pilate.

http://dmnes.org/cite/Poncetus/14thCx1478/Ob-SPVn

Cheers Paul

 

[Jim LeNomenclatoriste]

So, how should the name be written, poncetii ou poncetae ????

 

[l_raty]

So, how should the name be written, poncetii ou poncetae ????

Both schools exist, and I'm unconvinced that the Code gives an indisputable answer.
For an extensive statement of the "do not correct" argument, see https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281131228

(But, if it is to be corrected, I would correct poncetii into poncetiae, not poncetae. Nothing appears to justify a change in the stem of the latinized name.)

 

[Jim LeNomenclatoriste]

That does not help me. I leave in poncetae until a publication decides definitively on his spelling

(Either way, if it is treated as a subspecies, the name will disappear from my lists.)

 

[l_raty]

For an extremely similar case, see Cyanistes teneriffae hedwigii Dietzen, Garcia-del-Rey, Delgado Castro & Wink 2007, in: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/226411555.

The IOC accepted a change to 'hedwigae'.
This, again, is certainly NOT acceptable, as it includes a change in the stem of the original name, which nothing justifies -- the feminine of hedwigii is hedwigiae.
hedwigae was suggested by Manegold 2012 https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/53760391 . In Manegold 2012, it is an unjustified emendation (but not an available name, because it was published after 1999 and fails to meet Art. 16.1: Manegold expressed an intention to correct an existing name, not an intention to create a new name, as required for all new names after 1999; this leaves hedwigae there without any actual nomenclatural standing). In the IOC list, where the name is (correctly) attributed to Dietzen et al 2007 and no statement of intention is provided, it is an incorrect subsequent spelling.

H&M4 retained the OS, with a footnote arguing that no internal information allows the emendation.
This suggests they would have changed the name if an indication, beyond her first name, that Hedwig Sauer-Guerth is a woman had been present in the work. (It's the same here: Sally Poncet is cited by name, but not said to be female; the words 'she' or 'her' are not used anywhere in the paper.) Interestingly, the fact that they thought internal evidence was needed also suggests they would have been ready to interpret the incorrect latinization of Poncet, for a woman, into Poncetius rather than Poncetia, as an inadvertent error in the sense of Art. 32.5. This, however, is not tenable, because Art. 32.5 explicitly excludes errors of latinization from what can be deemed inadvertent errors. Furthermore, it seems obvious that this type of error is due exclusively to the authors *not knowing* what they were supposed to do; even with all the good will in the world, a lack of knowledge is not part of what I will ever be ready to call "inadvertence".

The numbers of instance of "Cyanistes teneriffae hedwigae" and "Cyanistes teneriffae hedwigii" found on the Web by Google are relatively similar.

 

[Jim LeNomenclatoriste]

H&M4

H&M cites any sources but I cannot find the bibliographic references on their site

 

[l_raty]

H&M cites any sources but I cannot find the bibliographic references on their site

I added a link to Manegold 2012 in my post #35, if this is what you were after.

(The references of H&M4 where in .pdf appendices, on a CD-ROM that came with each book. These do not appear to have been released so far, see: https://www.aviansystematics.org/the-howard-and-moore-complete-checklist .)

 

[Nutcracker]

(But, if it is to be corrected, I would correct poncetii into poncetiae, not poncetae. ....)

Agree; Poncetus / poncetae would be a type of whale, not a penguin :-O

 

[Paul Clapham]

For an extremely similar case, see Cyanistes teneriffae hedwigii Dietzen, Garcia-del-Rey, Delgado Castro & Wink 2007, in: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/226411555.

Another similar case is Lonchura tristissima bigilalae, see https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/40028913#page/168/mode/1up for the OD.

There's no evidence in the OD for the gender of Ilias Bigilala, but both Clements/eBird and IOC have emended the name, to bigilalei and bigilalai respectively as of their most recent versions.

 

[l_raty]

There's no evidence in the OD for the gender of Ilias Bigilala, but both Clements/eBird and IOC have emended the name, to bigilalei and bigilalai respectively as of their most recent versions.

He is "Iliah Bigilale" in the text (your link), but "Mr. Ilaiah Bigilale" in the acknowledgements on p. 156 https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/40028929, which seems to make him male.

The normal genitive ending of Latin words that end in -e in the nominative, is either -is (third-declension true Latin words -- mare, -is, the sea), or -es (first-declension words of Greek origin, originally ending in -η -- poecile, -es, a known Athenian portico). But these words are not masculine -- the Latin words like mare are neuter, the Greek ones like poecile are feminine --, thus treating Bigilale unmodified as a Latin word denoting a man is a bit problematic.

If this name was formed under 31.1.1, the author must be assumed to have set Bigilal- as the stem of the name, to which he added -ae instead of -i as instructed by the article; a masculine equivalent using the same stem would then be bigilali -- ie, a spelling that differs from both the emended spellings that are in use.
If formed under 31.1.2, the author may have latinized Bigilale into Bigilala, which, as a word, might be either masculine or feminine (or perhaps into a Greek-like Bigilales, which would be masculine); the grammatically correct genitive is then (in both cases) bigilalae, and no emendation should take place.

Why can't an author's choice be respected, if it's not clearly wrong ?