[Taxacom] Does the species name have to change when it moves genus?

[Dilrukshan Wijesinghe]

The original combination [with author and year] has been given in some general or faunistic works, presumably because it serves as a unique species identifier, e.g. Cramp et al. (1977-1994) The Birds of the Western Palearctic. Apart from its cumbersomeness there seems no reason why a string like Drosophila_melanogaster_Meigen_1830 cannot serve this purpose, irrespective of the current generic assignment and scientific name of the taxon.

Priyantha


D. P. Wijesinghe
dpwijesinghe at yahoo.com