From: "Adam Cotton" <adam...@cscoms.com> Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2012 12:01 PM

name if

*** Yes, the zoological Code may be said to govern three (or four) separate nomenclatural universes, but this is not what causes the confusion, at least not directly.

In the family group the publication of any new scientific name also makes available the corresponding scientific names in all the other ranks. This is not a problem (although it is a big difference with how things are arranged under the botanical Code).

In the genus group the publication of any new scientific name also makes available the corresponding scientific name in the other rank. Again, this is not a problem (although, again, it is a big difference with how things are arranged under the botanical Code).

However, 46.1 is problematical. It is clear that this has been drafted in parallel to the provisions on the other two groups, but it is very hard to read. The last part of the sentence speaks of nominal taxa, which have come into existence by the publication of the first name. The Glossary is quite clear about nominal taxa and what constitutes their scientific (and available) name: it explicitly points out Homo sapiens as the available name of a nominal taxon at the species level. So, once Homo sapiens has been published the name Homo sapiens sapiens also exists. So far so good.

The first part of 46.1 appears to be a mine field. Clearly Homo sapiens is established only as the scientific name of a species, not as the name of a subspecies, nor can it be the name of subspecies. On the other hand, the entry on "establish" in the Glossary seems to be very sure that only names of nominal taxa (uninominal, binominal, or trinominal) can be established (why else have a separate term, otherwise it would just be equivalent to "to make available"). So, I am not getting anywhere in reading this.

I am guessing that the intent of the first part of 46.1 is something like: A species-group name made available as part of a name of a taxon at either rank in the species group is thereby simultaneously made available, by the same author, for use as part of the scientific name of a nominal taxon at the other rank in the group;

However, that is not what it says ...

Paul

P.S. the Glossary is pretty clear that only a binomen can be the valid name of a species (and this is borne out by the body of the Code).

_______________________________________________

Taxacom Mailing List Taxa...@mailman.nhm.ku.edu http://mailman.nhm.ku.edu/mailman/listinfo/taxacom

The Taxacom archive going back to 1992 may be searched with either of these methods:

(1) by visiting http://taxacom.markmail.org

(2) a Google search specified as: site: mailman.nhm.ku.edu/pipermail/taxacom your search terms here