[Taxacom] Alle alle, or Alle alle alle?

[Stephen Thorpe]

Thanks Laurent for pointing out the context, I was led slightly astray by Mark's reply, and didn't read the original post carefully enough. The context does change things:
 
If you are compiling a regional list, and only the nominotypical subspecies (of a species with other subspecies elsewhere) is present in the region of interest, then it is perfectly fine to specify the subspecies. It gives more information than just listing the species. But if you are only interested in what species occur in the region, then it is perfectly fine not to specify the subspecies ...
 
Stephen


________________________________
From: Laurent Raty <l.raty at skynet.be>
To: TAXACOM <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> 
Sent: Friday, 17 August 2012 9:15 AM
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Alle alle, or Alle alle alle?

If what you want to do is to refer to a species as a whole, be it in a 
Belgian context, a binomial is certainly always OK.

There are however NO "species with the nominotypical subspecies as the 
only subspecies" in this list: ALL "formally monotypic" species go by a 
binomial, not by a trinomial.
"Formally monotypic" species are admittedly a minority in birds, though.
Also, of course, Belgium is Europe, Europe was the continent of, ia., 
Linnaeus and, for many well-known, wide-ranging birds, the 
earliest-described populations were from European. The result being that 
many subspecies that occur here are the nominate subspecies of their 
species, and go by names such as Accipiter nisus nisus or A. gentilis 
gentilis.

That said, the purpose of this list has never been more than to indicate 
(in a concise way) which taxa had been identified in Belgium. Not to act 
as a taxonomic authority. The list gives all the species that are known 
to have occurred in Belgium, with the subspecies when known.

Alle alle alle (Linnaeus) has demonstrably occurred in Belgium.
Alle alle polaris Stenhouse, which breeds further East than the former, 
has not, hence is not on the list.

Best,
Laurent -





On 08/16/2012 10:37 PM, Stephen Thorpe wrote:
> I agree entirely with Mark on this. A species with the nominotypical subspecies as the only subspecies is in fact a nonsense (like a coin with only one side!)
>
> The Principle of Coordination, taken too literally, would actually generate an explosion of redundant names, i.e., what about Alle (Alle) alle alle ?! Since there is no actual restriction of the number of family-group categories between superfamily and genus, and creating one creates them all, well, you see the point...??
>
> Stephen
>
> From: Mark Wilden <mark at mwilden.com>
> To: TAXACOM <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
> Sent: Friday, 17 August 2012 6:06 AM
> Subject: [Taxacom] Alle alle, or Alle alle alle?
>
> On Wed, Aug 15, 2012 at 12:22 PM, Richard HARDWICK <rch at skynet.be> wrote:
>>                                      Bruxelles, le 15-08-2012
>>          "Accipiter  gentilis gentilis"
>>          "Accipiter  nisus nisus"
>>          "Acrocephalus  arundinaceus arundinaceus"
>>
>>      Question - to be taxonomically correct, in a text about Belgian birds,
>>      ought I to be quoting the binomial  (as per the first list); or the
>>        trinomial name (as per the second list)?
>
> The binomial should be used, in my opinion. The only time the
> nominotypical trinomial should be used is if there also exists a
> different trinomial for a different subspecies.
>
> By the Principle of Cooordination (ICZN 46), creating "Accipter
> gentilis" creates "Accipter gentilis gentilis" (and vice versa) with
> the same name-bearing type. Hence every species has at least one
> subspecies. But when when there's only this one "formal" subspecies,
> it serves no purpose to indicate it. Or so it seems to me.
>
> ///ark
>
> Mark Wilden
> Web Applications Developer
> California Academy of Sciences
> www.antcat.org
>
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