[Taxacom] FW: formation of zoological names with Mc, Mac, et

[Tony.Rees at csiro.au]

Hi Jim,

You have chosen a non-homonym name (so far as we are aware, maybe a cryptic one nevertheless) but what if there were/are multiple taxa called Eucalyptus deglupta? This is where the authority portions come into play, at least for information retrieval/name reconciliation purposes...

Surely we can agree at least on this much?

What about (e.g.) Ficus variegatus Blume (our friend once more!), a fig tree, vs. Ficus variegatus Röding, 1798, not a fig tree at all? (Hint: google images will give a clue...)

You cannot say that the name alone is sufficient without the authority portion, to differentiate these two taxa.

And in genera, approx. 15% of all names are homonyms, a much bigger problem :(

- Tony


-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Croft [mailto:jim.croft at gmail.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, 2 September 2009 5:09 PM
To: Stephen Thorpe
Cc: Rees, Tony (CMAR, Hobart); fwelter at gwdg.de; taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] FW: formation of zoological names with Mc, Mac, et

We are going to have to differ on this and I guess it is an artefact
of how we each model (or not) our information.

The only non-Australian eucalypt grows in Indonesia.  It was named as
'Eucalyptus deglupta' but a Carl Ludwig Blume, aka C.L. Blume, aka
Blume, aka Bl.  He did this in (1849) in a publication commonly, but
not ubiquitously abbreviated to Mus. Bot. Lugd.-Bot. on a page number
I can not find because IPNI is not talking today and nobody else
bother to record this vital piece of information.  Presumably it has a
type which would anchor the name.

The species does not have any or nomenclatural or taxonomic synonyms,
but is also referred to as Kamarere, Indonesian Gum and Rainbow Gum
and even 'deglupta'.  The names science has chosen to give this
species is Eucalyptus deglupta from which you can deduce it is likely
to be related to other species our Eucalyptus and very little else.

All else is (pretty vital) metadata of the name taxon name that helps
you clarify what it the name 'most likely' to applies to.  It sum is
not the name.

We could chose a taxon with ambiguous concepts for the same name, and
then it gets *really* interesting...

jim

On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 4:23 PM, Stephen Thorpe<s.thorpe at auckland.ac.nz> wrote:
> No way! The authority/date should be thought of as part of the name! The authority is only indirectly about a person. The authority for a taxon is however the surname of the author of that taxon is spelled in the original publication, i.e., it is a "nominal person". If it is Smith, then the authority is just Smith. The name needs to be linked to the original publication is some other (external) way. The only reason for having dates as part of names is because of PRIORITY, NOT to point to a publication. Ideally, in a database, a name needs to be followed by a field pointing to the original publication, maybe like this:
>
> Examplus primus Smith, 1970
> Original publication: J. Smith, 1970a
>
> ________________________________________
> From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu [taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Tony.Rees at csiro.au [Tony.Rees at csiro.au]
> Sent: Wednesday, 2 September 2009 6:02 p.m.
> To: jim.croft at gmail.com; fwelter at gwdg.de
> Cc: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] FW: formation of zoological names with Mc, Mac, et
>
> Jim Croft wrote:
>
> <snip>
> I am getting quite worried about all this 'sanitization' of authorish
> strings as though it has some sort of nomenclatural, taxonomic or
> operational validity.  The author and date are not part of the name -
> they are attributes of a particular use of the name.
> </snip>
>
> Sounds a lot like operational and taxonomic validity to me. In the cases of homonyms at least, we need to distinguish between usages of a name - different authors/years/publications/pages, different usages, often different taxonomic status (nomen nudum or whatever). If we can't link together authority citations that are not identical but which are variant references to the same published name instance, then they all look like different name usages, which is incorrect.
>
> - Tony
>
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