Re: The validity of Pachyrhamphus

["T. Michael Keesey" <keesey@gmail.com>]

On Mon, May 5, 2008 at 8:22 PM, Mike Hanson <mhanson54@comcast.net> wrote:
> I've been reworking the Pterosaur Species List and in the process noticed the 
> following:
>  Fitzinger (1843) proposed the name *Pachyrhamphus* for *Pterodactylus 
> crassirostris* Goldfuss, 1831 since the previous generic name proposed by 
> Giebel in 1852, *Brachytrachelus*, was preoccupied by a genus of Circulionid 
> beetle (what else would you expect?) named by SchÃherr in 1847. Later on 
> Wagner (1861) proposes *Scaphognathus* since he believes *Pachyrhamphus* is 
> preoccupied by a Tyrannid flycatcher named by Gray in 1840. The only problem 
> is that it appears the genus given by Gray was spelled *Pachyramphus* 
> (without the h after the r) and "Pachyrhamphus" used in this sense was only a 
> common misspelling which had no real nomenclatural significance. So, 
> supposing that *Pachyrhamphus* has not undergone a 50-year period of disuse 
> (since I don't know whether or not this is the case), does this mean that 
> *Scaphognathus* is a junior synonym and should be abandoned in favour of 
> *Pachyrhamphus*, or is there some justification in not doing so due to the 
> extreme similarity of the two
 names and the confusion caused by misspellings? If not, then the only way to 
justify the validity of *Scaphognathus* is to determine if it is a *nomen 
oblitum* or petition the ICZN to reject *Pachyrhamphus* in favour of 
*Scaphognathus*.

Interesting.

AFAIK, "Pachyramphus" and "Pachyrhamphus" would be considered
different names under the ICZN. I would guess that _Pachyrhamphus_
Fitzinger 1843  is a nomen oblitum, but I suppose it should be looked
into.
-- 
T. Michael Keesey
Director of Technology
Exopolis, Inc.
2894 Rowena Avenue Ste. B
Los Angeles, California 90039
http://exopolis.com/
--
http://3lbmonkeybrain.blogspot.com/
http://dragabok.blogspot.com/