RE: Megalosaurus authority

[Tim Williams <twilliams_alpha@hotmail.com>]

Matthew Martyniuk wrote:

> "The original spelling for the type species of _Megalosaurus_ Buckland
> 1824 was _Megalosaurus bucklandii_ Mantell 1827, a nomen nudum next
> spelled _bucklandi_ by von Meyer 1832. _Megalosaurus_ appeared as a
> Parkinson 1822 nomen nudum (without a species name), and the binomial name 
> _Megalosaurus conybeari_ Ritgen 1826 is a nomen nudum/nomen
> oblitum."
>
>    This suggests that it should be _Megalosaurus bucklandii_ Mantell 1827, 
> but since that was a nomen nudum, it wouldn't "count".

Good question - I've wondered this too.

I'll start off by saying that Stephan Pickering is perhaps not the best 
authority on this matter.  The man to ask is probably George Olshevsky, who 
is pretty au fait when it comes to matters of historical nomenclature.  His 
email address is in the DML Archives.

In any case, the genus _Megalosaurus_ was named and described back in 1824, 
but no species name was provided.  However, given that Mantell added the 
species name _bucklandii_ simply to convert _Megalosaurus_ into a binomial, 
_M. bucklandii_ would therefore *not* be a 'nomen nudum'.  After all, the 
genus _Megalosaurus_ was validly named, and _M. bucklandii_ is the type 
species (after suppression of _M. conybeari_, that is).  No new description 
of _M. bucklandii_ was needed, given that the genus _Megalosaurus_had 
already been described.

So it's...

_Megalosaurus_ Buckland 1824
_M.  bucklandii_ Mantell 1827 (type)

That's my interpretation.

Cheers

Tim

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