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If someone coined a new name, could they apply to have it treated as a nomen protectum and have the existing (but withdrawn) name treated as a nomen oblitum?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
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On Saturday, July 25, 2020, 03:42:53 p.m. EDT, David Marjanovic <david.marjanovic@gmx.at> wrote:
Gesendet: Samstag, 25. Juli 2020 um 06:56 Uhr
Von: "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, which 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.
> [...]
> 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.
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Other issues in this thread:
– 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.)
– 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.
– 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 32–34 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*.)