Re: New taxon (and taxonomy) from Sereno's Science paper

[Dinogeorge@aol.com]

In a message dated 6/28/99 11:06:11 PM EST, qilongia@yahoo.com writes:

<< A name's a name. Could be "Tim." But *Oviraptor* has
 priority over *Caenagnathus* by 16 years. I could be
 wrong about the use of genera as priority markers, or
 is it suprageneric taxa that are used in this case
 only? Sounds cool, either way, though, and I have no
 real investment in the Ovi'oidea name, so if it gets
 bumped (if it can?) then okay.
 
   What's the rule book say? >>

Rule book says priority of genus Oviraptor over genus Caenagnathus is 
irrelevant. Nobody is synonymizing the genera. Family-level name 
Caenagnathidae was created in 1940, Oviraptoridae in 1976. When a 
family-level name is created, all family-level versions of that name are 
deemed created simultaneously (i.e., superfamily, family, subfamily, tribe, 
subtribe, and any other rank that might be defined at this level), even if 
they're not used explicitly. If you think about it, that's the only 
reasonable way to do it, in the Linnaean system. It guarantees that, if there 
is a superfamily Caenagnathoidea (for example), it will include a family 
Caenagnathidae among its subgroups, which will include a subfamily 
Caenagnathinae among >its< subgroups, and so on, down to the included genus 
Caenagnathus, the type genus of those family-level groups.

So the name Caenagnathoidea already existed in 1940, even if it wasn't used 
explicitly then, and it has priority over Oviraptoroidea, which didn't come 
into existence until 1976, even if it wasn't used explicitly then. Since both 
taxa contain the genus Caenagnathus, the first because Caenagnathus is the 
type genus of Caenagnathidae and Caenagnathoidea, the second because Paul 
Sereno put it into Oviraptoroidea, they are subjective synonyms. 
Oviraptoroidea is the junior synonym, and thus its name must be abandoned in 
favor of the senior synonym Caenagnathoidea.

Paul tells me the correction will appear in a forthcoming JVP article, for 
which he now (arggh) has to change the galleys.