Re: [dinosaur] Coloradisaurus a nomen nudum?

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

> The only hint that it is a replacement name for *Coloradia* is a brief note 
> in the index (pg. 251) which reads "*Coloradia*Â= *Coloradisaurus*". As far 
> as I can tell this would fail Art. 13.1.3 and render *Coloradisaurus* a nomen 
> nudum.

It clearly fails Art. 13.1.3 ("must [...] be proposed expressly as a new 
replacement name"), because "A = B" is also how ordinary junior synonyms are 
indicated in the index. (...I grew up with the German translation of 1988 and 
have repeatedly read the whole book, index included.) Failing Art. 13 makes it 
a nomen nudum, which is one kind of unavailable name: it does not exist 
according to the letter of the Code.

I dimly remember a rumor that Bonaparte himself intended to publish 
*Coloradisaurus*, and that Lambert thought Bonaparte had already published it. 
No idea why Bonaparte (who recently died) didn't publish anyway, though.

Does Lambert's book count as published? To count as published, Art. 8.1.1 says, 
a work "must be issued for the purpose of providing a public and permanent 
scientific record"; public and permanent, yes, but scientific?

I think the best option would be to petition the Commission to set current 
universal usage in stone and put *Coloradisaurus* Lambert, 1983, on the 
Official List of Generic Names in Zoology. But I'm not sure about this, I'm not 
going to do it myself (the manuscript the unregistered names in Scientific 
Reports, Geology of the Intermountain West and, as it turns out, Royal Society 
Open Science is still growing), and I'm not at all sure the Commission would 
agree with such a petition (which would entail, as far as I understand, putting 
the book on the Official List of Works Approved as Available for Zoological 
Nomenclature).