[Taxacom] Canis [familiaris] dingo Blumenbach - a non-existent name?

[Tony Rees]

OK, I found an old (1874) reference by McCoy which attributes the name to
"Blumenbach" (in parentheses, however I am presuming that the usage of
these was not standardised at the time in the sense that we know it now):

https://books.google.com.au/books?id=fd8QAAAAIAAJ&pg=RA2-PA45&lpg=RA2-PA45&dq=Blumenbach+canis+dingo

The citation given (on p. 8 of that work) is to "Canis dingo, Blumenbach
Handbuch, p. 103" (no edition or date stated).

I presume that this is "Handbuch der Naturgeschichte". You, Fancisco, would
probably be able to tell me/us more about the dates of publication and
editions of this work. The earliest version I have found that contains the
dingo reference is the 6th edition (1799) and treats the name as a
subspecies(?) of Canis familiaris, but on page 100:
https://books.google.com.au/books?id=ObwGP1u_hu0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=Handbuch+der+Naturgeschichte&hl=nl&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjo_vTmouvaAhWFfbwKHW7NA4gQ6AEIRjAE#v=onepage&q=dingo&f=false.
The dingo does not appear to be mentioned in earlier editions (see list at
https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/search?searchTerm=Handbuch%20der%20Naturgeschichte&sort=date#/titles
).

In the 7th edition (1803) the dingo appears, again as a subspecies, on
p.98, in the 9th edition (1814) it is on p. 102; I have not checked
elsewhere as the task is somewhat tedious... in any case, it would be neat
to know to which edition McCoy was referring, and whether in that instance
Blumenbach did indeed cite it as a species in its own right. However it
still appears that Blumenbach's treatments would post-date that of Meyer,
1793 and so be of no nomenclatural relevance.

Regards - Tony

Tony Rees, New South Wales, Australia
https://about.me/TonyRees

On 6 May 2018 at 06:38, Francisco Welter-Schultes <fwelter at gwdg.de> wrote:

> We went through Blumenbach's works from before 1793 and never found that
> name. Meyer 1793 did not mention Blumenbach. Difficult to explain why this
> name has been attributed to Blumenbach.
>
> Cheers
> Francisco
> _______________________________________________
> Taxacom Mailing List
> Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu,
> http://mailman.nhm.ku.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/taxacom
> The Taxacom Archive back to 1992 may be searched at:
> http://taxacom.markmail.org
>
> Send Taxacom mailing list submissions to taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the Web, visit:
> http://mailman.nhm.ku.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/taxacom
> You can reach the person managing the list at:
> taxacom-owner at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
>
> Nurturing Nuance while Assaulting Ambiguity for 31 Some Years, 1987-2018.
>