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Re: Sereno's (2005) new definitions



----- Original Message ----- From: "Jaime A. Headden" <qilongia@yahoo.com>
Sent: Saturday, December 24, 2005 10:23 AM


David Marjanovic (david.marjanovic@gmx.at) wrote:

<Erm...

It will be easy if all those names are registered by the same author(s). This,
in turn, will be relatively easy if my proposal to the PhyloCode mailing list
on averting the dangers of the Companion Volume gets through. Otherwise, it'll
be a race -- first come, first served.>


That would not be a tremendously difficult and problematic issue. Imagine
that Hermann von Meyer has been dead over a century, so someone ELSE will have
to "register" the name FOR him, or do it for themselves.

Er... yes, of course. Where's the problem?

In which case, despite
more prevalent usage of Hesperornithiformes, it is likely Clarke will register
Hesperornithes to the same definition to establish a priority FIRST.

Well, either you discuss that with her, ideally resulting in a coauthored publication.


Or my recent proposal about taking the horror out of the Companion Volume gets through. I posted it to the PhyloCode mailing list a few months ago (and would of course enjoy some discussion there).

I have a BETTER solution.

So have I :-)

This will, as Sereno suggests, require DISCUSSION, and that will take
a while. Decades. I would argue longer, a century.

My proposal is maybe 10 years -- plus some pressure so that the discussion actually happens!


We can try to recommend just
treating definitions as a state of priority, rather than the name itself, since
there is actually two issues here: nomenclatural stability, and taxonomic
stability, that may require two separate systems to consider.

~:-|

It would be nice if the ICZN would just drop ranks, and recognize
suprageneric clades in general, rather than just families.

This may not be the right day to say it, but I don't think any of the rank-based codes can be saved... sorry for the pun.