[Taxacom] Some whimsical questions

[Robert Zuparko]

Having experienced my share of problems with name changes, I was wondering
what were the worse case scenarios (or if you're an optimist, what are the
record-holders). Specifically,

1) Which species has undergone the most name changes?

2) Which species has the most junior synonyms?

3) Which species has been variously placed in the greatest number of
different taxa (either family- or generic-level)?

I assume the contenders are likely to have some of the following
characteristics - described in the 1800's (when communication between
researchers in different countries was problematic), widespread in the
Holarctic (where the greatest variety of researchers are likely to have
come across them), at least somewhat charismatic (increasing the amount of
attention they might receive), and perhaps of economic importance (again
increasing the chances of people running into them), which suggests to me
that at least one of the species is likely to be among the Lepidoptera.

Cheers,
-Bob Zuparko

Robert Zuparko
Essig Museum of Entomology
1101 Valley Life Sciences Building, #4780
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720-3112
(510) 643-0804