numerals in names

[Michael Schmitt]

Dear colleagues,

when rearranging and labelling old beetle material I faced the following
nomenclatorial problem:

If an 18th-century-author published the species-group name _18-punctata_
(or _28-punctata_ or something similar), this spelling has to be "amended"
according to Art. 31d(ii). This article says that "a number ... as part of
a compound species-group name is to be written in full AS A LATIN WORD ..."
(my emphasis).

Normally subsequent authors "amended" the above original spelling to
_octodecimpunctata_ (or _vigintioctopunctata_ etc.), however, these ar no
proper Latin words. The proper Latin numerals are duodeviginti or
duodetriginta, respectively.

My question is: Must these secondary spellings (e.g. _octodecimpunctata_)
be changed to the correct ones (e.g. _duodevigintipunctata_)? To be sure:
if the original author wrote _octodecimpunctata_ there is no problem at all.

Thanks for any advice.

                                    Best regards
                                      M.Schmitt

PS: I crosspost this message to ICZN-4





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* Dr. Michael Schmitt (Zoologischer Anzeiger)                  *
* Zoologisches Forschungsinstitut und Museum Alexander Koenig  *
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