Re: [dinosaur] RETRACTION: Oculudentavis, new smallest known Mesozoic bird in amber from Cretaceous of Myanmar

[Ronald Orenstein <ron.orenstein@rogers.com>]

This may be a dumb question, but:

If someone coined a new name, could they apply to have it treated as a nomen 
protectum and have the existing (but withdrawn) name treated as a nomen 
oblitum? I realize that is not what the nomen oblitum category is really for, 
but is this even possible?

Ronald Orenstein
1825 Shady Creek Court
Mississauga, ON L5L 3W2
Canada
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On Saturday, July 25, 2020, 03:42:53 p.m. EDT, David Marjanovic 
<david.marjanovic@gmx.at> wrote: 





Gesendet:ÂSamstag, 25. Juli 2020 um 06:56 Uhr
Von:Â"Ben Creisler" <bcreisler@gmail.com>

> As things stand now, the big question is what the authors of the description 
> of the more complete specimen decide to do. Since the specimen presumably 
> would be preserved in Burmese amber as well, they will need to find a journal 
> to publish in that has not changed its policy in light of the humans rights 
> and ethical issues. If the authors treat the Oculudentavis paper as 
> "nonexistent" as Henry Gee interprets the situation,

...then they're wrong, unless I've overlooked something really big, because 
only the Commission can declare that the paper should be treated as not having 
been published.

> they could make their specimen the holotype of a new genus and species, and 
> give it a new binomen, ignoring the name Oculudentavis.

Then they would create an available but invalid junior subjective synonym of 
*Oculudentavis khaungraae*.

> If they decide to keep the name Oculudentavis and retain its holotype, they 
> would need to cite the retracted paper,Âwhich now seems problematic.

They would only need to cite the nomenclatural act in the paper. I can't see a 
problem with that.


> The only case that comes to mind of another fossil animal name being 
> "retracted" is Acinonyx kurteni.Â
> [...]
> In this case, the specific name "kurteni" would be a nomen dubium. It was 
> published in the normal way but the taxon it refers to cannot be determined.


The way I read Deng (2011), the taxon has been determined: it's *Sivapanthera 
linxiaensis*, of which *Acinonyx kurteni* is then an ordinary junior subjective 
synonym. (The latter's type skull is a composite of fragments of at least one 
*S. l.* skull, including diagnostic teeth, and a lot of plaster.)

The ICZN glossary explains "nomen dubium" only as: "A Latin term meaning 'a 
name of unknown or doubtful application'." The term hardly occurs in the Code. 
The reason is simple: the term belongs to taxonomy, not to nomenclature, and 
nomenclature is what the Code is about.

In practice, the term is used much more narrowly in... well, at least in 
vertebrate paleontology: when a taxon with an available name at one rank cannot 
be distinguished from two or more taxa at the same rank, which can be 
distinguished from each other, then and only then it is a nomen dubium. If *S. 
l.* is the only species that *A. k.* cannot be distinguished from, *A. k.* is a 
junior synonym of *S. l.* and not a nomen dubium at all. Such things are always 
subjective to some degree, so they're in the purview of "taxonomic freedom", 
and that's why the Code isn't about them.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Other issues in this thread:

â Yes, every Nature paper is peer-reviewed, and has been since the 1970s. 
(Before that, the joke goes, it was edited by gods, so peer review wasn't 
necessary.)

â The wording of the retraction notice ("We, the authors"...) is probably 
Nature's boilerplate text for retractions. The authors were told to sign it and 
apparently felt they had no choice. Remember that Springer Nature, not the 
authors, owns the copyright for the paper.

â Names are not automatically immutable; there is such a thing as an 
"incorrect original spelling" that is automatically corrected by the Code. 
However, that category is quite restricted. Articles 32â34 lay it all out. 
Specifically, here's Art. 32.5.1:

"32.5.1. If there is in the original publication itself, without recourse to 
any external source of information, clear evidence of an inadvertent error, 
such as a lapsus calami or a copyist's or printer's error, it must be 
corrected. Incorrect transliteration or latinization, or use of an 
inappropriate connecting vowel, are not to be considered inadvertent errors."

and its Example:

"Examples. If an author in proposing a new species-group name were to state 
that he or she was naming the species after Linnaeus, yet the name was 
published as *ninnaei*, it would be an incorrect original spelling to be 
corrected to *linnaei*. *Enygmophyllum* is not an incorrect original spelling 
(for example of *Enigmatophyllum*) solely on the grounds that it was 
incorrectly transliterated or latinized."

It is not made explicit if dictionaries or grammars count as "external 
source[s] of information", but... seeing as they're not contained "in the 
original publication itself", it seems the Code assumes no background knowledge 
of any language at all.

(Also, properly Classical would be *Aenigmatophyllum*.)