[Taxacom] Animalia or Metazoa?

[Stephen Thorpe]

Jim: that's a very general comment, but specifically:

do we really need a "good name" for the diphyletic grouping of  
Metazoans and animal-like protists?

Two reasons why we might do:

(1) both come under the Zoological Code of Nomenclature, and

(2) at least the journal Zootaxa also publishes on what it still calls  
"Protozoa" (but then, also still uses "Pisces"!)
http://mapress.com/zootaxa/taxa/index.html

At any rate, even if we do need such a name, does it have to be  
"Animalia"? I am not denying some pragmatic utility to having a name  
for the above diphyletic clade, and indeed I would suggest calling  
them "animaloids", or something! I just think that there has been some  
"slight of hand" in the big Hennigian reshuffle, whereby what was  
subkingdoms Metazoa + Parazoa, suddenly became "kingdom Metazoa"  
(yuck!), and the old subkingdom Metazoa now seems to be called  
Eumetazoa, leaving the poor animals out in the (Hennigian) cold!!!  
Animals are such a central concept in everyday life, that surely we  
can save their status as a scientific concept (i.e., monophyly) from a  
merely semantic assassination???!!!

There are similar issues with the names Insecta and Hexapoda...

Stephen




Quoting Jim Croft <jim.croft at gmail.com>:

> Which comes back to Paddy's previous post on social 'palatability' of
> names and concepts.
>
> There are heaps of people around the world who profess an interest in
> 'pteridophytes', even 'Pteridophyta'.  Even though based on compelling
> evidence, it seems to be phylogenetically quite meaningless, dare I
> say 'wrong', to do so.  But, as a concept it is meaningful to them in
> their context...
>
> jim
>
> On Sat, Jul 25, 2009 at 9:40 AM, Stephen  
> Thorpe<s.thorpe at auckland.ac.nz> wrote:
>  [reply] that's because the "broader grouping" is diphyletic, and some
>> would argue that we don't need "good names" for non-monophyletic
>> groupings. There is no reason why the name Animalia can't be used in
>> exactly the same sense as Metazoa, so it is no more or less precise ...
>> Use of Metazoa merely alienates the general public, who at least have
>> some understanding of what an animal is...
>
> --
> _________________
> Jim Croft ~ jim.croft at gmail.com ~ +61-2-62509499 ~
> http://www.google.com/profiles/jim.croft
>
> ... in pursuit of the meaning of leaf ...
>
> ... 'All is leaf' ('Alles ist Blatt') - Goethe
>



----------------------------------------------------------------
This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.