Re: [dinosaur] Diplodocus status

[Tim Williams <tijawi@gmail.com>]

Mickey Mortimer <mickey_mortimer111@msn.com> wrote:

> My question is- What bad outcome could occur because a species undiagnosable 
> within its genus is the type species?

Because in that case it's not a species at all.  It's just a name.


John D'Angelo <dangelojohne@gmail.com> wrote:

> Surely it's bad practice to change the type species of a genus because the 
> type species _might_ be non-diagnostic and there _could_ be taxonomic 
> confusion in the future?

Tschopp and Mateus (2016) (and later Tschopp et al. 2008) ascertained
that the _D. longus_ type was non-diagnostic.  So this is not a
hypothetical.  As such, we already have taxonomic confusion.