'Basilosaurus' has always bugged me, but at least we weren't
stuck with calling Megalosaurus 'Scrotum humanum'.
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Ethan Schoales <ethan.schoales@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Jun 21, 2020 at 7:48 PM
Subject: Fwd: [dinosaur] Party like it's 1758!
To: Yazbeck, Thomas <yazbeckt@msu.edu>
Raise your hand if you wish the ICZN allowed misleading names (like Basilosaurus, Arrhinoceratops, etc.) to be changed.
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Ethan Schoales <ethan.schoales@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Jun 21, 2020 at 7:46 PM
Subject: Re: [dinosaur] Party like it's 1758!
To: Yazbeck, Thomas <yazbeckt@msu.edu>
Hi, Dinosaur Mailing List guys.
On Sun, Jun 21, 2020 at 6:25 PM Yazbeck, Thomas <yazbeckt@msu.edu> wrote:
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!ÂOn 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..?