Re: Pterosaur diversity (was: Re: Waimanu)

[David Marjanovic <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>]

> Mackovicky has actually been the first to get it WRONG.

False memory on Jaime's part -- Makovicky does consistently keep the s in.

> When borrowed into Latin, the Greek word 'ops' would normally become
> 'opsis' (e.g. synopsis, borrowed by English via Latin), so I don't know 
> why
> anyone has ever assumed the stem in ceratopsian names was '-op'.

Why borrow it into Latin and not just keep it Greek? After all I've hardly 
ever seen a genus name ending in -opsis.

Besides, isn't "synopsis" already unmodified Greek? Linné wrote "synopsin" 
after all when he needed its accusative, and it looks more like an abstract 
noun than "together-face" would.

> An unresolved question is whether we should use
> Lapparentopheidae as Hoffstetter named it, or change it for consistency 
> with
> the numerous -ophiidae names (seeing as how he was operating under an
> incorrect assumption that they were all wrong).

The 1999 version of the ICZN doesn't permit corrections like this, but I 
guess the older versions may have mandated them... "Varanopseidae" (after 
*Varanops*; no idea where the e ever came from) was recently changed into 
Varanopidae.