[Taxacom] Species-level homonyms - between/within codes

[Tony.Rees at csiro.au]

Dear Taxacomers,

One question I am occasionally asked is whether there is a resource which lists notable species-level homonyms (either valid or invalid) across or between Codes, for data disambiguation purposes. Since I am not aware of such a resource, I have attempted to create one, with presently the grand total of 73 names to date:

http://www.marine.csiro.au/mirrorsearch/ir_search.list_homonyms?hlevel=species

(also accessible via its parent page http://www.cmar.csiro.au/datacentre/irmng/homonyms.htm)

I have deliberately excluded homonyms within the same actual genus instance since there are over 195,000 of those in the copy of Catalogue of Life which I have used for much of the base data, and distinguishing true homonyms from the numerous chresonyms included in that set would be a mammoth task; in other words this list is restricted to homonymic epithets in homonymic genera as well.

I would be happy to be alerted to names I have missed so that I can continue to maintain this as a potentially useful resource, or to receive any other feedback from list members that might lead to improvements. Since my base list from which this is drawn probably covers no more than 50% of all published species names I have no doubt that the eventual number will be somewhat higher than the present total, but maybe not massively so.

Regards - Tony

Tony Rees
Manager, Divisional Data Centre,
CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research,
GPO Box 1538,
Hobart, Tasmania 7001, Australia
Ph: 0362 325318 (Int: +61 362 325318)
Fax: 0362 325000 (Int: +61 362 325000)
e-mail: Tony.Rees at csiro.au
Manager, OBIS Australia regional node, http://www.obis.org.au/
Biodiversity informatics research activities: http://www.cmar.csiro.au/datacentre/biodiversity.htm
Personal info: http://www.fishbase.org/collaborators/collaboratorsummary.cfm?id=1566