RE: Vitakridrinda publication validity

[Jaime Headden <qi_leong@hotmail.com>]

  There was some effort from the AMNH and Stony Brook folks working towards 
de-emphasizing the use of "gen. et sp. nov." and its relatives in establishment 
of new taxa, especially given the tight relationship with folks like Gauthier 
and de Ricqlés who were advocating total sundering of the ICZN in particular 
from taxonomy. As I may have mentioned before, although this should be no 
surprise, Flynn et al. named *Ambondro mahabo* and included specific statements 
to the effect of refusing to use the Linnaean system, in defiance of the ICZN. 
The name is given as a species with praenomen, and referred to in much the 
manner that modern systematists _still_ abbreviate genus-species couplets (as 
"*A. mahabo*") in the paper itself. Despite this, other "standard" taxonomists, 
most of them Linnaeists, use "genus" when referring to the praenomen 
*Ambondro*, and this is true also of the Wikipedia page: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambondro_mahabo . The context of this nomenclature 
isn't even mentioned in the page itself, which is -- I feel -- idiotic, not to 
mention disingenuous of further revisors of the page who HAVE read the paper.

  As long as alternatives are ignored, you ARE going to get systematists not 
only ignoring the ICZN, but ignoring the papers who do so.

Flynn, J. J., Parrish, J. M., Rakotosamimanana, B., Simpson, W. F. & Wyss, A. 
R. 1999. A Middle Jurassic mammal from Madagascar. Nature 401:57–60.

Cheers,

  Jaime A. Headden
  The Bite Stuff (site v2)
  http://qilong.wordpress.com/

"Innocent, unbiased observation is a myth." --- P.B. Medawar (1969)


"Ever since man first left his cave and met a stranger with a
different language and a new way of looking at things, the human race
has had a dream: to kill him, so we don't have to learn his language or
his new way of looking at things." --- Zapp Brannigan (Beast With a Billion 
Backs)


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> Date: Sun, 26 Feb 2012 23:01:18 -0800
> From: mickey_mortimer111@msn.com
> To: dinosaur@usc.edu
> Subject: RE: Vitakridrinda publication validity
>
>
> >From Forster et al. (1998)- "The holotype specimen of this new bird, Rahona 
> >ostromi, gen. et sp. nov. ..."  So that's not an example at least.
>
> Mickey Mortimer
>
> ----------------------------------------
> > Date: Mon, 27 Feb 2012 00:01:34 +0100
> > From: david.marjanovic@gmx.at
> > To: dinosaur@usc.edu
> > Subject: Re: Vitakridrinda publication validity
> >
> > > The fact is that the ICZN rules are not always followed. But unless
> > > someone actually makes a point of contesting a name, then it doesn't
> > > become an issue.
> >
> > Extreme example: several binomina from the late 1990s and/or early 2000s 
> > were erected not as "new genus & species" but just as "new taxon". (Isn't 
> > <i>Rahonavis</i> one of those non-genera?) As far as the ICZN is concerned, 
> > that makes them utterly and totally invalid. Nobody seems to care, hardly 
> > anybody seems to so much as notice.
>