Ah, so I misunderstood the
whole affair and you "just" made it a nomen dubium instead of trying to destroy
it.
Heh heh. Let's wait for the PhyloCode. There registered names are valid and unregistered ones aren't, so it's impossible to accidentally create a valid name. Registration also practically destroys the possibility of homonymy -- cases like Syntarsus won't happen again after January 1, 200n. :-) Having not yet read Phylocode,
although I do have it, I cannot see where "registering a name" would
have prevented the foregoing discussion.
Had Syntarsus Fairmaire been registered, Raath could
have found out that the name already existed by means of a few clicks.
(Ignoring the fact that in 1969 this was not an option, but after "January 1,
200n" it will be.)
This is too hypothetical to answer... it's still not
clear what will replace the Linnaean binomial (something must, as the genus is a
rank like all others), therefore the current draft of the PhyloCode doesn't
contain any rules about species.
But my original
point was: Kranz just released the name to the public, without publishing a
diagnosis etc. AFAIK. So he probably wouldn't have registered it, and thus
nobody runs any risk of accidentally turning it into a valid name (dubious or
not) and accidentally robbing him of authorship. Cases like Ultrasaurus
Kim also can't happen again.
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