Message 2005-12-0040: Repost: Proposal about names with prefixes (and suffixes?)

Sun, 13 Nov 2005 16:21:36 +0100

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Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 16:21:36 +0100
From: [unknown]
To: PML <phylocode@ouvaxa.cats.ohiou.edu>
Subject: Repost: Proposal about names with prefixes (and suffixes?)

This is another e-mail of mine that has generated very little respons=
e,=20
presumably because it was sent at the height of the congress season a=
nd=20
because the actual proposal was hidden in a longer post.

----- Original Message -----
=46rom: "David Marjanovic" <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>
To: <dinosaur@usc.edu>; <phylocode@ouvaxa.cats.ohiou.edu>
Sent: Monday, October 10, 2005 7:35 PM
Subject: Re: Stormbergia dangershoeki, new Early Jurassic ornithischi=
an from=20
South Africa

Recommendation, maybe even Rule:
Clade names created by adding a prefix to another clade name should/m=
ust be
defined in a manner consistent with the meaning of the prefix.

Example 1: *Euornithopoda* (author, year) should/must be defined in s=
uch a
way that it can maximally be a junior heterodefinitional synonym of
*Ornithopoda* (author, year), assuming that both names are to be defi=
ned.
The reason is that eu- means "good, true" in Classical Greek and has
historically been used to designate taxa within those described by th=
e
corresponding prefixless names.

Example 2: *Panarthropoda* (author, year) should/must be defined in s=
uch a
way that it can minimally be a junior heterodefinitional synonym of
*Arthropoda* (author, year), assuming that both names are to be defin=
ed.
The reason is that pan(to)- means "all" in Classical Greek [someone w=
ho
actually knows Classical Greek should correct this if necessary!] and=
 has
historically been used to designate taxa that include those described=
 by
the corresponding prefixless names.

--------------------------------------

As you can see, I can't find a good wording for this...

"Maximally" and "minimally" are supposed to mean "if it is as
inclusive/exclusive as possible".

At least some of the prefixes in question have also been used for
other purposes, for example the genus *Euparkeria* was named because =
a
totally different genus *Parkeria* already existed; their contents ar=
e not
going to overlap. Probably we should explicitely exclude these cases =
=66rom
the above proposal, under the assumption that consistency with the=
=20
literature
outweighs a little confusion.

(About the examples: Currently Euornithopoda is used for what
botanists would probably call the "core ornithopods", and Panarthropo=
da
includes everything that was ever referred to Arthropoda, which in cu=
rrent
usage means Onychophora + Tardigrada + Arthropoda + a load of Cambria=
n
fossils. By the way... it has _never_ been used for "everything close=
r to
Arthropoda than to Tardigrada", which is what the so-called Pan- conv=
ention
would dictate.)

We might (!) maybe (!) want to extend this to the suffixes prescribed=
 by
the existing Codes for certain ranks, and/or to some suffixes that ha=
ve
become fashionable for other purposes, like -iformes and -omorpha.

(This, too, would require an exception for some genus names --
zoological superfamilies must end in -oidea, but *Emydoidea* is a val=
id
genus name that designates the sister-group of *Emys* after which it =
is
named. Or, again, we might want to outlaw this to eliminate potential
confusion -- at the risk of losing some quite popular names.)=20

  

Feedback to <mike@indexdata.com> is welcome!