same year, same rank, same code homonym

[christian thompson]

Roger:

There are lots of examples of this situation in the past, but most
workers do not catalog them.

The situation happens in past when an author writes a paper (1)
describing a new species and send it off to journal A. Then the same
author write another paper (2) where that new species is dealt with and
the author assumes that paper 1 is or will be published before paper 2,
but in fact paper 2 is published before paper 1.

Most workers catalog the new taxa and name from paper 2 even though in
that paper the taxon and name are not marked as new and simply ignore
paper 1.

We in developing the BioSystematic Database of World Diptera decided to
catalog all names and all situations where names were clearly marked as
"new / nova / etc."

Example: In 1924, Mario Bezzi had 6 papers published on fruit flies
(Diptera: Tephritidae) where he dealt with 166 species. Unfortunately,
there were 12 cases where what he thought would be a subsequential usage
of a species he had thought would have been published appeared first.

Afreutreta biseriata Bezzi 1924: 528 first appeared and was made
available in a key published in Annals of the South African Museum
(published in August], but the new species description for Afreutreta
biseriata Bezzi 1924: 128 was published in Bulletin of Entomological
Research on 11 November 1924.

In most cases, there are no real taxonomic consequences as one merely
has a junior primary homonym which is an objective synonym as the types
are the same. However there may be cases where the type series may be
different. That is, if the second reference does not include a reference
to the first, but it appear first then the type series is determined by
the material mentioned in the second.

We finally closed this "hole" in the 4th edition of the International
Code of Zoological Nomenclature. To be available after 1999, taxonomic
names must be clearly marked as NEW and must include type designations.
So, the accidental appearance of one paper before another should no
longer be a problem.

In theory, one should be able to build a perfect nomenclatural databae
/ system on the simple rules that Linnaeus gave us, but after cataloging
over a quarter million fly names human "error" reveals such is an
impossible dream as there are exceptions to everything.

;-)





F. Christian Thompson
Systematic Entomology Lab., USDA
c/o Smithsonian Institution
MRC-0169 NHB
PO Box 37012
Washington, DC 20013-7012
(202) 382-1800 voice
(202) 786-9422 FAX
cthompso at sel.barc.usda.gov e-mail
www.diptera.org  web site

>>> Roger Hyam <roger at HYAM.NET> 05/13/05 07:38AM >>>
Hi Everyone,

I am looking for an example of a 'same year, same rank, same code
homonym'.

Does anyone know of an example of two identically spelled names
(uninomial, binomial or trinomial) that were published in the same
year
at the same rank and are governed by the same nomenclatural code (ICBN
or ICZN or Bacteriological or Viral)?

Note I am excluding the author string here.

The ICBN does say that near-identical spellings may also be considered
homonyms but I am looking for identical spellings really.

There must be some out there but I just can't find an example.

Would be most grateful for any help,

Roger