[Taxacom] Species name validity against nomina dubia

[Stephen Thorpe]

Stuart,
You are not making a great deal of sense! Perhaps you could provide us with the actual example details? Having the same species epithet is no problem at all, provided that they are (originally) placed in different genera, e.g. how many vulgaris, zealandicus, etc. species are there ... lots! Where you say "clearly diagnosable", this sounds like a red herring entirely.
Cheers,
Stephen

--------------------------------------------
On Sun, 21/10/18, Stuart Longhorn <sjl197 at hotmail.com> wrote:

 Subject: [Taxacom] Species name validity against nomina dubia
 To: "taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu" <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
 Received: Sunday, 21 October, 2018, 3:43 PM
 
 
 I have a question about a newly
 described species, which uses the same species name as
 another older one with a complex history in the taxon (an
 animal family) which I’m interested in.
 
 A new species was just given the new
 name  (with modern high quality description) in my
 focal family. That same species name “xyz” has been used
 multiple times previously for many other diverse animals, in
 several distinct genera, but I understand that is not a
 problem when others are in different genera and clearly
 diagnosable.
 
 But, within my family there is another
 much older described species of the same name “xyz”, for
 which the identity is really uncertain. There is no type(s)
 for it, and that older description is dire, the family is
 (fairly) secure for it, but nothing finer-scale. Yet, it is
 currently treated as a junior synonym of another valid
 species, also with no type and dire description, and that
 synonym seems completely unjustified. I would suggest best
 if both these others old ones are instead placed as nomina
 dubia, and their synonymy removed. Neither of these older
 descriptions are adequate enough to confidently to
 re-identify species, nor place in any genus, only a likely
 family.
 
 Point is, if that transfer of the older
 "xyz" to nomen dubium happens, is it still appropriate to
 again use the same name “xyz” for this 'other' new
 species in same family? Whatever this new one is, it seems
 impossible to distinguish from the other older one in nomen
 dubium at either the generic or species level. We can only
 say same family (probably!). Else, both the new species and
 problem old one(s) are from the same country of origin -
 they're plausibly the same genus - or even same species -
 but all uncertain!
 
 The question is this - would it be
 appropriate to give a replacement name to the new species?
 
 <https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=wq2cCXQAAAAJ&hl=en><http://www.linkedin.com/pub/stuart-longhorn/a/a74/877>Thanks
 in advance, any suggestions welcome!
 Stuart Longhorn.
 
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