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Re: When carnivores kill other carnivores...



As I understand it, Rauhut's rationale is incorrect because Huene only conditionally proposed Altispinax for the vertebrae. He said something to the effect of "If the dorsals are found not to belong to Megalosaurus, they should be named Altispinax." Conditional naming is apparently not accepted by the ICZN.

Mickey Mortimer

From: "T. Michael Keesey" <keesey@gmail.com>
Reply-To: keesey@gmail.com
To: Dinosaur Mailing List <dinosaur@usc.edu>
Subject: Re: When carnivores kill other carnivores...
Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2006 16:38:59 -0800

On 3/9/06, Tim Williams <twilliams_alpha@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> I follow Rauhut in recognizing that _Altispinax_ is the valid name for the
> tall-spined Wealden theropod from England. Rauhut's rationale is that Huene
> explicitly proposed the name _Altispinax_ for the distinctive vertebrae, not
> for the indeterminate tooth that was originally named _Megalosaurus
> dunkeri_. I'm sure some people would disagree with this interpretation
> (e.g., the guy who proposed the name _Becklespinax_).


Well, he was following Paul's lead. In PDW Paul named a new species of
_Acrocanthosaurus_ (_A. altispinax_) for the spines; Olshevsky just
moved it to its own genus.

This sounds questionable to me, though. If _Megalosaurus dunkeri_ is
just the tooth, then either _A. dunkeri_ is the type species and the
tooth is the holotype of _Altispinax_, or "Altispinax" has never been
given a type species, and is therefore not an available name.
Etymology does not guide taxonomic rules.
--
Mike Keesey
The Dinosauricon: http://dino.lm.com
Parry & Carney: http://parryandcarney.com