Taxacom: Which code (ICZN, ICN or something else) applies to Chromista?

[Douglas Yanega]

On 7/7/24 1:48 PM, Markku Savela via Taxacom wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Bothering the list again. Tried to google about this, so far no clear 
> answer.
>
> Asking it, because Catalogue of Life appears to use ICZN for 
> Chromista, and naturally I ran into Homonymy problem again...
>
> Lepidoptera
>
>   Cyclogramma Doubleday, [1847]
>
> https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdata.nhm.ac.uk%2Fdataset%2Fbuttmoth%2Fresource%2Fc1727662-2d1e-426f-818c-d144552a747c%2Frecord%2F7673&data=05%7C02%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7C0601daad1c874335abfd08dc9ed62a9c%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C638559889897259201%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=uZrytWtmmgRpnJ6%2Bn7RXHtXsk0Oxird8x1JWonCPBhI%3D&reserved=0 
>
>
>  (currently synonym of Diaethria Billberg, 1820)
>
> Detected conflict with Chromista genus (Catalogue of Life)
>
>    Cyclogramma (no author or date)
> https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.catalogueoflife.org%2Fdata%2Ftaxon%2F8YR37&data=05%7C02%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7C0601daad1c874335abfd08dc9ed62a9c%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C638559889897259201%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=Ru86bBgyAdn36%2B%2F89V74Nt4tGIdml6BwcFBB3iEQBzs%3D&reserved=0
>
> No need for extensive discussion. Just which code applies to 
> Chromista? And if ICZN, whould be nice to know which one wins the 
> "homonymy contest" here...
>
The ICZN applies to a significant portion of Chromista and Protozoa 
(below), and homonymy applies to any such names. For this one you're 
safe, however: "Cyclogramma Doubleday, 1847" (the butterfly) has 
precedence over "Cyclogramma Perty, 1849" (the ciliophoran). What's 
troublesome here is that the latter genus is the type of the family 
"Cyclogrammidae" (itself of dubious spelling as opposed to 
"Cyclogrammatidae"), and appears to be unreplaced.

My list of genus-rank chromistan names falling under the ICZN, which I 
believe is fairly accurately screened, contains the following phyla and 
numbers of genera: Ciliophora (2277), Foraminifera (5378), Myzozoa 
(605), Cercozoa (217), Bigyra (90), Heliozoa (39), Acavomonidia (1), 
Picozoa (1), and Radiozoa (1). Tony Rees points out that some groups 
like dinoflagellates and euglenids are very tricky to contend with, due 
to inconsistency. My file contains most of these, to be conservative 
(e.g., dinoflagellates are under Myzozoa). As for protozoa, the phyla 
there are Amoebozoa (357), Euglenozoa (296), Microsporidia (239), 
Mycetozoa (237), Sarcomastigophora (174), Choanozoa (156), Metamonada 
(129), Acritarcha (108), Calcitarcha (55), Sulcozoa (19), and Loukozoa 
(8). I have Tony to thank for much of this screening.

*If any of these phyla should NOT be treated under the ICZN, 
definitively, I would be grateful to know which ones*. Likewise, if any 
are clearly missing (and not just *apparently* missing because of 
alternative classification schemes)

There are, by my best estimate, nearly 1000 cases of homonymy that 
involve one or more genus-rank chromistan/protistan (CP) names. A large 
proportion of these are unreplaced (a bare minimum of over 100 confirmed 
cases, possibly many more), presumably because people who work on CPs do 
not typically read standard zoological literature and vice-versa. The 
advent of internet searches is, in this case, pretty much a disaster for 
people on both sides of that fence, as it were, because the strict 
application of the rules will necessitate the invalidation of MANY 
names, and only with internet searches are all of these cases coming to 
light, in some cases after centuries of both names being in use. The 
problem is slightly less dramatic with extinct taxon names, but it's 
also not that hard to find names of fossil taxa involved in unresolved 
homonymies with extant taxa.

I can see in my genus-rank spreadsheet at least a few other Lepidopteran 
names: Anania, Canopus, Cyphanta, Daria, Elina, Fabiania, Helenia, 
Lepista, Loxomorpha, Trichia, and Valeria, that are pretty certainly 
involved in unresolved homonymy with CPs. Possible additional names are 
Ammoconia, Catharia, Chapmania, Cidaria, Closteromorpha, Crameria, 
Eumorpha, Euploea, Fentonia, Hollandella, Hyalina, Jankowskia, Quadrina, 
Saturnus, and Yania, with even more dubious cases for Acrasia, 
Ancistrina, Aragonia, Bizone, Blanchardia, Ceratium, Danielita, 
Diplodina, Loma, Metacineta, and Trochilia.

So, just for leps alone, I see 38 cases of real or possible homonymy 
with CP genus-rank names. That same pattern will certainly repeat for 
any group of organisms you choose to examine carefully. I hesitate to 
offer to assist people by providing this sort of information, but if you 
are willing to reciprocate somewhat, then I am *very* interested in 
having the help, and it can be very mutually beneficial. That is, I know 
the potential cases, but cannot always be certain that the cases are 
*genuine* (it's possible that one or more names in a set of apparent 
homonyms is actually *unavailable* and does not compete for homonymy) 
or, if genuine, that they require resolution - i.e., where a name is 
presently used as valid (as a genus or subgenus) but is a junior homonym 
(junior homonyms not presently used as valid don't require active 
intervention). *Sometimes a senior homonym qualifies as a nomen oblitum, 
and the junior as a nomen protectum, and those cases are VERY important 
to know about, as they can be published and resolved immediately without 
an ICZN ruling*.

I can offer a list of potential chromistan homonym cases for anyone who 
is willing and able to dig into the details of these potential cases and 
get back to me with clear answers as to their status. I have already 
given the exhaustive list to fellow Commissioner Erna Aescht, who works 
with chromistans (so she needed the entire list of CP cases, which has 
1581 rows), but can do so for other taxonomists who only want the 
subsets affecting their discipline.

CoL is not a great source, BTW, nor are EoL or ITIS. IRMNG is possibly 
the best all-around, as it is more actively curated for accuracy than 
GBIF. Every aggregator has its share of errors and omissions, and the 
more the process of aggregation is automated, the worse those problems 
tend to be.

Peace,

---

Doug Yanega      Dept. of Entomology       Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0314     skype: dyanega
FaceBook: Doug Yanega (disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
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