Fw: Genus as the species

[W.Wuster]

On Mon, 12 Apr 1999, Walter Boeger wrote:

> Dear all,
>=20
> I am sorry to bring this up again, but I am not 100% convinced yet...
> Article 5 of the ICZN says: "The scientific name of a species, and not of=
 a
> taxon of any other rank, is  a COMBINATION OF TWO NAMES (A BINOMEN), the
> first being the generic name and the second the specific name....".
>=20
> In my opinion (still, since I am not convinced that I was wrong at start)=
 is
> that EVEN IN A LIST one has to provide the scientific name as such:
>=20
> Rhinoxenus
>     R. piranhus
>     R. bulbovaginatus
>     R. nyttus
>     R. arietinus
>=20
> and NOT like this:
>=20
> Rhinoxenus
>     piranhus
>     bulbovaginatus
>     nyttus
>     arietinus
>=20
> I know the first option is slightly longer but it seems to me that if you
> present a UNINOMEN you are NOT talking about a species nor following the
> ICZN....

I agree with you where tables are concerned.

The kind of scenario I had in mind would be a sentence which includes a=20
listing of species or subspecies.

For instance, the sentence "In Crotalus, highly lethal venoms have been
found in C. durissus, C. scutulatus, C. tigris and C. viridis" is a lot
more cumbersome than the sentence "In Crotalus, highly lethal venoms
have been found in C. durissus, scutulatus, tigris and viridis".=20

When trinomials are used, the mass of abbreviations gets even worse.
"The subspecies of Crotalus durissus found in Brazil are cascavella,
collilineatus, ruruima and terrificus" reads a lot better then "The
subspecies of Crotalus durissus found in Brazil are C. d. cascavella, C.=20
d. collilineatus, C. d. ruruima and C. d. terrificus".=20

Obviously, clarity is priority no. 1, but I see no great sin or major
problem in ommitting the genus (and species) initial in the above
examples. The prose certainly flows more smoothly in the "paralegal"
version.

--
Wolfgang W=FCster
School of Biological Sciences, University of Wales, Bangor, UK
e-mail: w.wuster at bangor.ac.uk   WWW: http://sbsweb.bangor.ac.uk/