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Re: [dinosaur] Party like it's 1758!



Is there any incentive to split up the Psittacosaurus species into 'uninomials'? Maybe subgenera are a better option to reduce confusion in special cases...

Thomas Yazbeck

From: dinosaur-l-request@mymaillists.usc.edu <dinosaur-l-request@mymaillists.usc.edu> on behalf of Paul P <turtlecroc@yahoo.com>
Sent: Sunday, June 21, 2020 6:08 PM
To: DML <dinosaur-l@usc.edu>
Subject: Re: [dinosaur] Party like it's 1758!
 
On Thursday, June 18, 2020, 09:10:21 AM UTC, Mike Taylor <sauropoda@gmail.com> wrote:

> > But there is a bias toward publishing manuscripts that name genera and not "just" species.
> Correct, and I am very much in favour of this for dinosaurs.

Are you suggesting that we can't hope to distinguish between dinosaur species (of a given genus) in the fossil record? That may be true for some groups for the time being, but it's certainly possible to estimate the species groups for a few genera. Triceratops is just one example, although in this case they are non-contemporaneous (possible anagenesis).


> then the name of the species will have to change to reflect it

They might end up being synonymized, but species names don't change. Or are you talking about new combos, e.g. moving a species to a different genus or creating a new genus name for it later..?