Re: Erlic/kosaurus

[Dinogeorge@aol.com]

In a message dated 96-05-28 16:29:02 EDT, Thomas_R_HOLTZ@umail.umd.edu
(th81) writes:

>Actually, it wasn't me who pointed this out; it was Perle
>Altangarel, who named the critter.  Part of the confusion lies in
>the fact that it was formally named as a n. gen. et sp. in two
>different papers, one in English in Acta Paleontologia Polonica, one
>in Russian in the Results of the Soviet-Mongolian Expeditions.

The Russian paper has priority over the English paper by almost a
year.  According to ICZN rules, that's quite enough to establish the
spelling _Erlikosaurus_, even against the author's wishes. It is, of
course, always possible for someone (not necessarily the author) to
petition the ICZN to change the name, citing an inadvertent
typographical error in the original paper. The process is rather long
and tedious, however. Had the name been spelled more than one way in
the original paper, a first revisor could have chosen the spelling
_Erlicosaurus_; but this didn't happen.