Re: Me vs. Makovicky et al.- comparison and consensus

[Tim Williams <twilliams_alpha@hotmail.com>]

Jay <sappororaptor@yahoo.com> wrote:

> The original species 'Coloradi' brevis was published with description and 
> diagnosis, so that
> doesn't matter. The fact is that Coloradisaurus is simply a replacement 
> name. We have replacement
> names for preoccupied genera all published formally all the time WITHOUT 
> diagnosis - the authors
> simply needs to refer to the original paper to diagnoses. For example look 
> at the Chatterjee &
> Creisler paper (1991) renaming Alwalkeria & Morturneria. All the authors 
> needed to do here was
> adjust their etymologies.

Exactly right.  _Coloradisaurus_ was just a re-naming of the prosauropod 
genus _Coloradia_, which was pre-occupied (by a genus of moth).  _Coloradia_ 
(the prosauropod) was named and described, so a new description was not 
necessary for _Coloradisaurus_.  The sauropod genus _Protognathus_ (also 
preoccupied) was re-named _Protognathosaurus_ in a similar way, by Olshevsky 
(1991).  This needs to be done for the theropod genus _Ingenia_, and 
Barsbold gets first bite of the apple.  _Syntarsus_ has already been taken 
care of (although not in ideal fashion; still, _Megapnosaurus_ stands).

BTW, as Trevor alluded too (I think), Lambert is not at all at fault.  He 
didn't mean to 'scoop' Bonaparte (who came up with the name 
_Coloradisaurus_), and indeed checked with Jose before putting the name 
_Coloradisaurus_ in his dinosaur book.  Thus, Lambert (1983) published 
_Coloradisaurus_ in the belief (mistaken, as it turned out) that Bonaparte 
had already named _Coloradisaurus_ in print.  22 years of practice have 
established _Coloradisaurus_ Lambert as valid.  But I wonder if this sort of 
thing happened today if things would go do smoothly...

Anyway, the _Coloradisaurus_ situation is different to the 
_"Chilantaisaurus" maortuensis_ case, in which the new genus requires a 
description (i.e., a diagnosis) in order to be valid.

T. Michael Keesey keesey@gmail.com wrote:

> Moral of the story: use species or specimens as specifiers, not
> supraspecific taxa. (Now repeat ten times quickly!)

Taylor and Naish (2005) also made this recommendation.  It's a good idea.

Cheers

Tim