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

[Stephen Thorpe]

Not that I know of, but it could happen, which is enough to prove my point that the Code is not logically watertight, and therefore somewhat unsuitable for automation. Actually, there might just be a way out of that problem of nonexistent authors, but there are plenty of other things that could crash your system! For instance, see:
http://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Pselaphotheseus_ihupuku#Name
the Code does not determine the outcome of two different holotypes being explicitly designated! You could arbitrarily decide on an outcome, but that's going beyond the Code
________________________________________
From: Jim Croft [jim.croft at gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, 5 September 2009 6:29 p.m.
To: Stephen Thorpe
Cc: fwelter at gwdg.de; taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] FW: formation of zoological names with Mc, Mac, et

Are there any documented cases where a species is ascribed to an
author in the protologue, when in fact the author named had nothing to
do with it?  or was fictitious?

jim

On Sat, Sep 5, 2009 at 3:02 PM, Stephen Thorpe<s.thorpe at auckland.ac.nz> wrote:
> Something of a problem with that interpretation of the Code: would we not then have to verify that Hergstrom, or whoever, really did write the description and willingly contribute it, in order to verify that the name was available with Hergstrom as author? Could be tricky! Would it not be better to just take it as authorship "by decree". What if Hergstrom was a figment of Cranston & Edwards' imagination after a party one night?! I would say that the author of the name would still be Hergstrom, even though no such person exists! We are back to that Dubois article in Zootaxa about the interpretation of authorities for nomina - they are not persons! He calls them signatures, but I call them nominal persons...
>
> Stephen
>

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