Taxacom: [KU SUSPECT SPAM] Re: A nomenclatural puzzle - genus Galea Meyen, 1833 (mammal), preoccupied or not?

[Laurent Raty]

Meuschen did not use fully consistently uninominal names for his genera. 
In particular, his "GENUS LVIII. DISCI TRANSFIXI." (p. 490) is the 
plural of "Discus transfixus", meaning "the Pierced Disks". (All of 
Meuschen's genus names occur only in the plural in headers, and reduced 
to an initial letter in species names.) Pretending that the plural 
ending of the adjective in a nominal group like "Disci transfixi" can be 
"corrected" to the singular, while leaving the plural noun (which this 
adjective agrees with) untouched -- thereby producing an improbable 
"Discitransfixus" --, is... well, odd.


An analysis of the ornithological part of Meuschen's work (pp. 38-65) 
was published in 1926 by Gregory Mathews (who did not discuss Meuschen's 
application of binominal nomenclature, and may indeed not have had a 
very close look at the rest of the work) -

Mathews GM. 1926. Another new book, which necessitates changes in 
nomenclature. Austral Avian Record, 5: 81-100.

Mathews' opinions on some of Meuschen's names were since (partly) 
followed. One of Meuschen's species names, Rallus cinereus Meuschen 1787 
(p. 40), was used to displace Gracula carunculata Gmelin 1788, and is 
now Creatophora cinerea (Meuschen 1787). Another name, Tanagra atra 
Meuschen 1787 (p. 52), was used to displace a junior primary homonym, 
Tanagra atra Gmelin 1789, which gave way to Tanagra melanopis Latham 
1790, now Schistochlamys melanopis (Latham 1790). However, despite 
Mathews' suggestion that it had to, Trochilus smaragdinus Meuschen 1787 
(p. 48) did not displace Trochilus smaragdinus Gould 1846, which remains 
used as Aglaiocercus kingii smaragdinus (Gould 1846).


Cheers,? Laurent -



On 12/1/22 02:09, Francisco Welter-Schultes via Taxacom wrote:
> Dear Thomas,
> From where exactly did you extract the impression that Meuschen (1787) 
> did not consistently apply the Principle of Binominal Nomenclature?
>
> Best wishes
> Francisco
>
> Am 30.11.2022 um 23:23 schrieb Thomas Pape via Taxacom:
>> ?From looking at the work by Meuschen (1787), I get the impression 
>> that he did not consistently apply the Principle of Binominal 
>> Nomenclature, and that means that any names in that work are outside 
>> of zoological nomenclature (i.e., they are unavailable).
>>
>> /Thomas
>>