Loch Ness monster

[David Heppell]

On Fri, 23 Feb 1996, Richard Jensen wrote:

> Shawn Landry's concern about time on our hands is misdirected.  The issue
> is a valid scientific issue: what constitutes a legitimate scientific
> name?  Interestingly, in the discussions about the "type" of Homo
> sapiens, it was concluded that simply reference to a specimen, even
> though no holotype (or other type) exists was permissible under the
> Zoological code.
>
> Does this mean that taxa can be named before they are discovered?
>
> Richard J. Jensen      |   E-MAIL: rjensen at saintmarys.edu
> Dept. of Biology       |   TELEPHONE: 219-284-4674
> Saint Mary's College   |   FAX: 219-284-4716
> Notre Dame, IN  46556  |
>

No.  Article 1 (b) (1) of the Zoological Code expressly excludes
hypothetical concepts from the provisions of the Code.  A taxon named
before it is discovered must be hypothetical.  An example is
Pithecanthropus Haeckel, 1866 - a hypothetical genus based on a
hypothetical species.  It has no nomenclatural status and does not
preoccupy Pithecanthropus Dubois, 1894, based upon a known species.

In the case of Nessie, a specimen if caught could only bear the name
Nessiteras rhombopteryx if it was consistent with the taxonomic characters
on which that name is based (the type photograph).

For many years we exhibited in this museum (then the Royal Scottish
Museum, Edinburgh) a cast of the "poison-fang of the extinct giant
serpent" Bothrodon pridei, with the following information:
        "The original of this unique fossil [in the Glagow University zoology
museum] was obtained in a silt-like deposit of Pleistocene age in the
Gran Chaco region of South America.  The snake itself must have been an
enormous animal, possibly about 100 feet in length, and may have fed on
Megatherium and other slow cumbersome animals of the plains."

When it was discovered that the "poison-fang" was no more than a labial
digitation of the seashell Lambis chiragra, the hypothetical snake was
consigned to oblivion, but the taxon (which was based on the specimen and
not on the concept) survived as a junior synonym of the gastropod!

David Heppell
Curator of Mollusca
National Museums of Scotland, Edinburgh