[Taxacom] Type genus of Hepialidae

[Douglas Yanega]

On 11/8/21 8:51 AM, John Grehan via Taxacom wrote:
> Since Taxacome is inhabited by some super sleuths who manage to dig up the
> most obscure nomenclatural stuff I thought I would post this inquiry. The
> Hepialidae Stephens 1828 is 'obviously' derived from the genus Hepialus
> (Linnaeus, 1758). But Stephens did not designate Hepialus as the type
> genus, and so far in my looking through the literature the earliest
> designation I can find for Hepialus as the type genus is Nye & Fletcher
> (1991 - Generic names of moths of the world). They do not indicate their
> designation is original, so perhaps there is something earlier. I have so
> far not found (or missed) anything in the early family listings by Walker
> or Kirby, or various other publications I have so far read. If anyone
> recalls anything earlier than Nye & Fletcher please let me know.  It's one
> of those items that could be out there,but 'buried' amongst everything else.

The way that typification of family names work is slightly different 
from other taxonomic ranks; the choice of type genus determines what the 
name of the family must be (Articles 29, 63 & 64). In essence, then, 
whoever first uses a name as a family-rank name establishes what the 
type genus is. I don't see that there is a specific requirement for a 
formal designation.

So, it appears that the type genus of Hepialidae was established as 
Hepialus automatically by whoever first published that name (or a 
variant) as a valid family-rank taxon. Again, the way this part of the 
Code is worded, it doesn't look as if a formal designation is required, 
and I'm fairly certain that a lot of very old family-rank taxa did not 
have formally designated types in their original publications.

If I'm wrong about this, I expect someone will correct me.

The potential for confusion does exist, if there are related genera with 
very similar names (e.g., let's suppose there was a genus named 
"Hepiala" or "Hepialis"), but this doesn't happen very often.

Peace,

-- 
Doug Yanega      Dept. of Entomology       Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0314     skype: dyanega
phone: (951) 827-4315 (disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
              https://faculty.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html
   "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
         is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82