Abberatiodontus (was Re: Horner and Goodwin on Triceratops)

[Tim Williams <twilliams_alpha@hotmail.com>]

David Marjanovic wrote:

> I just discovered Art. 29.4.2 which says we are not stuck with any of these 
> examples, so as soon as someone publishes Aberratiodontidae, Gansuidae and 
> Yandangornithidae, we can use those

That's a relief.

> We are, however, almost certainly stuck with *Aberratiodontus*, which 
> should be *Aberratidens* or something... or perhaps *Aberratodus* if we 
> insist on having the tooth in Greek...

...the whole tooth, and nothing but the tooth.  I can live with 
_Aberratiodontus_, given that there are plenty of zoological names that end 
in -dontus, e.g., _Heterodontus_ (shark), _Xiphodontus_ (beetle), and so on. 
 Also, -dontus is a common suffix for conodont genera.

For _Aberratiodontus_, the sloppy nomenclature is part of a larger problem 
of a poorly written original description.  After reading the description by 
Gong &c, I am not sure what _Aberratiodontus_ actually is, beside being (a) 
a bird, and (b) a diapsid.  The authors call it an enantiornithean, but I 
wonder if it might lie closer to the euornithean/ornithuromorph branch of 
the Aves.  _Aberratiodontus_ strikes me as poorly adapted for arboreality, 
which is unusual for an enantiornithean (although that alone is no reason to 
exclude it from the Enantiornithes).

Cheers

Tim