[Taxacom] Some whimsical questions

[John Oswald]

The record-holder in the Neuropterida (Insecta: Neuroptera, Megaloptera, and Raphidioptera) will surely be the species currently known as Chrysoperla carnea, which is the common Old World green lacewing species that can be abundant in agricultural fields.

My database shows 219 distinct synonyms for this species. Each synonym is a "distinct combination", i.e., any unique combination of available and/or unavailable genus- and species-group names (genus, subgenus, species, subspecies, variety, etc.). 

The 219 combinations contain a total of 82 unique species-group names, of which 69 are available and 13 are unavailable. Of the 69 available species-group names, 53 have been used at species rank (without subspecies) in at least one combination. 

So, 53 synonyms in Doug's restricted sense. This also highlights Doug's observation that the number of synonyms can increase dramatically when one considers subspecies, unavailable names, etc.

John

---oo0oo---

John D. Oswald
Professor of Entomology
Curator, Texas A&M University Insect Collection
Department of Entomology
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX  77843-2475

E-mail: j-oswald at tamu.edu
Phone: 1-979-862-3507

Lacewing Digital Library: http://lacewing.tamu.edu/
Bibliography of the Neuropterida: http://lacewing.tamu.edu/Biblio/Main
Neuropterida Species of the World: http://lacewing.tamu.edu/SpeciesCatalog/Main


-----Original Message-----
From: Taxacom <taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> On Behalf Of Robert Zuparko
Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2019 4:15 PM
To: taxacom <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
Subject: [Taxacom] Some whimsical questions

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
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