any official terminology?

[Richard Pyle]

> Since Dr. Edwards' address shows that he works on arachnids, the
> "official terminology" he refers to can be that of the International
> Code of Zoological Nomenclature only. The currently effective fourth
> edition of the Code (ICZN 1999), to my knowledge, does not provide a
> term such as Dr. Edwards is seeking. Therefore, the answer to Dr.
> Edwards' question - as stated by Dr. Lammers - simply is: no.

My general reaction to the original question (and the follow-up responses),
was more or less in line with Martin's -- i.e., that the only thing
"official" in zoological nomenclature is that which is governed by the ICZN
Code.

However, I'm not so sure that it is fair to invoke such a restrictive
definition of "official".  There are many terms and conventions that have
been used with traditional consistency throughout recent (and not-so-recent)
zoological nomenclature, that are not covered by the ICZN Code.  It might be
fair to regard some of these practices as "official" -- especially if some
organization (other than ICZN) has deemed them to be so.

But in any case, I don't believe there is any "official" terminology that
applies to Dr. Edwards' original question, even given the most liberal
definition of the term "official".

> Instead, in my view, the term "comb. nov." is not intended to signal
> the CHANGE in combination - if that were the case, other changes would
> have to be signalled as well - but rather the fact that a new and
> Code-legal combination is being used FOR THE FIRST TIME.

...but the term "comb. nov." (or any indicator of a first new combination)
is not "official" either (by your definition).  To my knowledge, there is no
ICZN Code requirement for flagging first instances of a new combination.
Article 48 doesn't say anything about *new* combinations (I'm not even sure
what the purpose of Art. 48 is). The closest thing is probably
Recommendation 51G, which basically says that if you want to credit the
author who first established a new combination, then format the combination
author after the parentheses of the original describing author (i.e., the
same way botanists do it).

Yes, "new combination" is defined in the glossary of the ICZN Code, but I
don't see how that makes the combining of a species epithet with a genus
name other than the original genus an "official" ICZN nomenclatural act.

This is one of the examples I was thinking of above when I suggested that
the definition of "official" need not necessarily be confined to Code
requirements.

Aloha,
Rich

P.S. How would you definine a "Code-legal" combination?