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RE: terminology



  It seems odd that after I mention that the ICZN can be used to set aside 
*Manospondylus*/*giga* for *Tyrannosaurus*/*rex*, that this is being said to 
_me_. The issue is whether this is neccessary. It is not: No one uses the 
former, nor pretends the former has any sort of utility over the latter.

Cheers,

Jaime A. Headden
The Bite Stuff (site v2)
http://qilong.wordpress.com/

"Innocent, unbiased observation is a myth." --- P.B. Medawar (1969)


"Ever since man first left his cave and met a stranger with a
different language and a new way of looking at things, the human race
has had a dream: to kill him, so we don't have to learn his language or
his new way of looking at things." --- Zapp Brannigan (Beast With a Billion 
Backs)





----------------------------------------
> Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2011 19:11:46 +0100
> From: david.marjanovic@gmx.at
> To: dinosaur@usc.edu
> Subject: Re: terminology
>
> > Setting aside the rules to favor preference (the case if
> > *Manospondylus gigas* was ever validly diagnosable) would fly in the
> > face of those rules being purported as "good" enough for said
> > scientists to appeal to.
>
> But, you know, the ICZN explicitly provides the possibility of
> petitioning the Commission for the maintenance of such widely used names
> as *Tyrannosaurus*.
>
> > It is in cases like this that I would tend to favor usage of
> > *Rioarribasaurus colberti* for the Ghost Ranch taxon _as long as_ the
> > holotype of *Coelophysis bauri* was undifferentiable from at least
> > two other taxa. (And let's give this "rule" its due, it really should
> > be worded that way on the case of diagnosis -- I think Mickey was the
> > first to formulate this argument, correct me if I am wrong.)
>
> For nomina dubia, Article 75.5 _explicitly_ says people "may" petition
> the Commission for replacing the undiagnostic type with a diagnostic
> neotype.
> http://www.nhm.ac.uk/hosted-sites/iczn/code/index.jsp?article=75&nfv=
> This is why the petition to give *Coelophysis* a neotype was accepted.
> (The article even provides an example where the name of an ammonite
> species was "saved" this way.)