Re: Avaceratops and Ceratops (was Re: THE NEW ISH OF JVP)

[Dinogeorge@aol.com]

In a message dated 1/25/00 10:27:48 AM EST, twilliams_alpha@hotmail.com 
writes:

<< (3) In another paper in the same issue of JVP, Sereno calls the 
sister-group 
 to the Centrosaurinae Ceratopsinae rather than Chasmosaurinae.  Now, Sereno 
 is a stickler for nomenclatural correctness (e.g. he abandoned the name 
 Titanosauridae in favor of Saltasauridae because the _Titanosaurus_ type 
 material is probably non-diagnostic).  Sereno must believe that _Ceratops_ 
 must be a good genus to name a higher-level taxon after it (especially since 
 almost everyone else, George Olshevsky excepted, calls this clade the 
 Chasmosaurinae).  At any rate, there's no good evidence that _Ceratops_ is a 
 chasmosaurine (see (1) and (2)). >>

If you're going to include Ceratops in the subfamily Chasmosaurinae, then the 
name of the subfamily must change to Ceratopinae (or, less correctly, 
Ceratopsinae), because Ceratops is the type genus of the family Ceratopidae. 
The rule is that, if a family is subdivided into subfamilies, tribes, etc., 
any subdivision that contains the type genus must have the same name as the 
family, with the appropriate change in ending. This is mandatory in the 1985 
Code; don't yet know how it is in the 2000 Code, but I presume this rule 
still stands.