Re: popular names

[Stan Friesen <swf@ElSegundoCA.ATTGIS.COM>]

>From: John Schneiderman <dino@revelation.unomaha.edu>
 > > But there's
 > > some rule stating that when a name becomes so forgotten and superseded by 
 > > a more
 > > popular term, it can be forgotten. Who knows what the rule is?
 > > 
 > In that case lets bring back Brontosaurus...Apatosaurus just doesn't do 
 > it for me.  Besides, wasn't it only in the sixties or seventies that the 
 > push for Apatosaurus be used instead of Brontosaurus because of priority?
 > Thoughts anyone?
 > 
That was only in the *popular* press.
In scientific circle, the name Apatosaurus had been in use as
the senior synonym since the early part of this century.  Apatosaurus
never was a "forgotten" name in the scientific literature, only
in the popular literature.

The rule *used* to be that a name not used in *scientific* literature
for 50 years was deemed forgotten, and could be ignored for purposes
of synonymy.

However, the rule turned out to have a flaw - some minor groups of
organisms were sometimes not even mentioned in the literature for more
than 50 years.  This means the *only* name of some species might be
declared "forgotten".

The current rule is that if bringing back an unused senior synonym
would seriously disrupt stability, the matter is to be refered
to the International Commission of Zoological Nomenclature for a
ruling.  You have about a snowball's chance in H*** of getting
the commision to declare Brontosaurus conserved over Apatosaurus.
[On the other hand, if Centrosaurus proves to be a junior homonym,
they almost certainly *would* conserve it]

Note: the rules of nemenclature only require strict seniority for
family, genus and species names.  At the higher levels, like
Dinosauria, seniority has no statutory standing.  Thus the name used
for that group is entirely a matter of consensus among those who
study it.  Thus, the name is, and will remain, Dinosauria.

swf@elsegundoca.attgis.com              sarima@netcom.com

The peace of God be with you.