Re: NoMeNcLaTuRe Question

[Dinogeorge@aol.com]

In a message dated 12/26/98 9:31:30 PM EST, gobi2010@hotmail.com writes:

<< If one life form is given different names on the same day, what would be 
 the propper name? >>

This happened with the sauropod _Supersaurus_, which was also given the name
_Ultrasaurus_ in the same paper (so the names were published simultaneously),
because the author thought they were two different dinosaurs. When it turned
out that the names belonged to the same animal (because the specimens were
different bones from the same single individual), the revisors of the taxonomy
chose _Supersaurus_ over _Ultrasaurus_, because, for one thing, the name
_Ultrasaurus_ was already preoccupied by an earlier usage.

If two different papers appear on the same day (so that it is impossible to
tell which appeared first), each describing the same specimen by a different
name, then neither name has priority, and it is up to the person (or persons)
who discovers this fiasco to choose the name he or she prefers as the
"official" name and the other as junior objective synonym. The person becomes
the "first revisor" of the name.