Re: Dinosaur a tecnical term; fish is not (was RE: Fish with milk (Sheesh spinoff))

[John Wilkins <j.wilkins1@uq.edu.au>]

On 27/10/2006, at 1:31 PM, evelyn sobielski wrote:

> > essentialism. Types were
> > held to be the exemplars of some taxon (for
> > instance, there was
> > commonly a "type species" for genera in the early
> > 19thC), but they
> > did not have to bear all the characters of the
> > taxon's other members.
>
> Every Linnean genus still requires a type species -
> the one which is first described as member of that
> genus or in cases like splits a newly designated one*.
> Hence "name-bearing type". If you consider a genus a
> clade (which it should ideally be), the type species
> is the subclade where whe containing clade of which
> bears that name if not a junior synonym. Thus, if the
> type species gets removed from a genus, it takes the
> genus name along with it. At least that's how it works
> in zoology, but I think everywhere else too.

But as I understand it, not being a taxonomist myself, we no longer  
require that the type species is the most "typical" of the genus.  
That is to say, that the type species has the most general characters  
that are the differentiae of the genus.

--
John S. Wilkins, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Biohumanities Project
University of Queensland - Blog: evolvethought.blogspot.com
"Darwin's theory has no more to do with philosophy than any other
hypothesis in natural science." Tractatus 4.1122