Re: Dinosaur Genera List corrections #153 (JOKE)

[Dinogeorge@aol.com]

In a message dated 12/21/00 11:55:12 AM EST, 
jschneiderman@revelation.lib.unomaha.edu writes:

<< > Aachenosaurus would be a tough genus to beat for alphabetically first in 
all 
 > of zoology (too bad it turned out to be a plant!).
 
 Not really...All they have to do is find (for example: a distinctive
 tooth similar to Iguandon but not quite) in the area around Aachen...and
 there you have it...a new genus "Aachenodon" <-- I hope this is not
 occupied already.
 
 So lets go out there and look for them critters. >>

I was talking about generic names already published: tough to find one of 
those that's alphabetically ahead of Aachenosaurus. Naturally, once you have 
Aachenosaurus as a target, you can easily create a generic name that's 
alphabetically ahead of it. The generic name that is alphabetically the first 
possible under present ICZN naming conventions is Aa. (One-letter names are 
prohibited: Article 11.8--"A genus-group name...must be a word of two or more 
letters...") The alphabetically first possible species name is Aa aa (ditto 
for number of letters in a species epithet). Interestingly, since a family 
name must end in the suffix -idae, there is no alphabetically first possible 
family name. For any integer n, you can string together n a's ahead of the 
-idae, but that name is alphabetically preceded by the name with n+1 a's 
ahead of the -idae: E.g., Aaaaidae alphabetically follows Aaaaaidae. (If you 
insert any other letter into the string of a's, that will, of course, move 
the name alphabetically down the list.)