[Taxacom] Type genus of Hepialidae

[John Grehan]

Great! I appreciate that information. It makes life a whole lot simpler.

John Grehan

On Mon, Nov 8, 2021 at 12:23 PM Douglas Yanega via Taxacom <
taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> wrote:

> 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
>
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