Carios "jerseyites"

[Margaret K. Thayer]

Robin-

Perhaps you could cite the relevant ICZN article(s) for us?

As someone (Tom Lammers, I think) said of plants, you can name animals
nearly anything you please.  The genitive is certainly not the usual means
of forming specific names from localities, but I don't think there's
anything in the Code that prevents it.  I haven't seen the original
description of the species in question.

The only article I find (20) in the current ICZN regarding fossils and the
suffix -ites (also -ytes and -ithes) refers to genus-group names with those
endings added to distinguish putative fossil members of an extant genus
from extant members (and does not at all say that you must use those
endings).

Margaret

At 11:57 AM 10-04-2001 -0600, you wrote:
>Carios or Carlos, the specific epithet is not correct.  As it is a fossil,
>there are a few other rules in the ICZN that should be followed.  I suspect
>that this one should have been Carios jerseyites.
>Robin leech



Margaret K. Thayer      mthayer at fieldmuseum.org     http://www.fmnh.org
Zoology--Insects                                      or
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