Nomenclator Zoologicus Volume 9 - errors in author names

Alfred Newton anewton at FIELDMUSEUM.ORG
Fri Mar 24 19:43:40 CST 2006


Dear Nomenclator Zoologicus users:

I just happened across a curious problem with many generic names in Vol. 9
of the printed version of Neave's Nomenclator Zoologicus, particularly for
names dated 1992-1994, which is faithfully carried over into the online
version of the Nomenclator at: http://www.ubio.org/NomenclatorZoologicus/

Specifically, many of the names of authors are truncated, with the last 1-2
letters chopped off.  Some examples (there are multiple generic names for
each):
Erw 1994 should be Erwin 1994
Ja 1994 should be Jach 1994
Morro 1994 should be Morrone 1994
Perki & Balfour-Browne 1994 should be Perkins & Balfour-Browne 1994
Spring & Goodri 1994 should be Springer & Goodrich 1994
Wa 1992 should be Watt 1992
etc. etc.
the winner: Declinia "Nikits Lawren, Kirejtsh & Gratsh 1993" should be
Nikitsky, Lawrence, Kirejtshuk & Gratshev 1993!

The problem seems to start at about 1990 and become worse until about half
of the 1994 authors have truncated names.  So, if you use the Nomenclator
to check a generic name and the author name(s) look funny, and it dates to
the early 1990's, check the generic name on Google and you will usually
find the correct full author name (but occasionally Google will find the
truncated author name because the data were extracted from the Nomenclator!).


Alfred F. Newton    <anewton at fieldmuseum.org>
Associate Curator
Zoology Department/Insect Division
Field Museum of Natural History    <http://www.fmnh.org>
1400 South Lake Shore Drive
Chicago, IL 60605 USA
         Tel. (direct line):  312-665-7738
         Fax (Zoology Dept.):  312-665-7754
         Austral Staphylinid PEET site including Staphyliniformia catalog
databases:
                 <http://www.fieldmuseum.org/peet_staph/>




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