IUBio

Chloraemidae, Pherusidae, Flabelligeridae

Geoff Read g.read at niwa.cri.nz
Mon Apr 5 23:21:26 EST 1999


Hi Fred & everyone,

> ... it's clear that I would be the only one who believe it
> necessary to put in an application to keep Flabelligeridae - if I read Tom
> & Geoff correctly their interpretation is that Flabelligeridae stands and
> there is no problem. And since I won't write up an application, then I
> think everybody's happy!? We use Flabelligeridae and that's it.

I would have liked to hear directly or indirectly views from other people I 
know take an interest in such things.   

I have a few further points to make. I don't mind what happens  - I looked at 
the book as asked to, found the 'precedence' clause of Article 40b and 
interpreted it as  indicating a formal application was probably unnecessary. 
Just one opinion voiced in public, but also shared by Tom Perkins. 
However, Tom & I have not convinced Fred, whose expertise in these 
matters is very considerable.  I suspect Fred might be troubled that Article 
23 on priority doesn't cross-reference to the clause, but only to its 
companion clause. We think it was a small mistake or oversight and I note 
it seems to be corrected in the 4th Edition public draft.  

It is a  matter of  possible conflict between Articles 23 & 40. There is a 
recent paper by W J Bock (1994 - History and nomenclature of avian 
family-group names. Bull. American Museum of Natural History 222:1-281) 
that apparently discusses in great depth this sort of problem with the Code. 
I don't have access to it. Perhaps someone interested could look at it and 
report back?  

Everything changes after 1 January 2000, not too far away at all, when we 
get a new code. I believe from looking at the draft, there will be a new 
'limitation of the Principle of Priority' section that will allow taxonomists 
discovering unused senior synonyms to point them out and effectively 
validate the commonly-accepted junior name without need for the 
Commission to be involved. I look forward to that day (if & when) and 
suspect we can probably safely keep Pherusidae in the archives and not 
bother the Commissioners at all.  

> All the best/Fred (who would like to go back to biology now...)

:-) For those that don't know, Fred has had probably the most active 
participation in matters raised before the  Commission of anybody 
polychaetological!   

--
  Geoff Read <g.read at niwa.cri.nz>


-- ANNELIDA LIST
   Discuss  =  <annelida at net.bio.net> = talk to all members
   Server =  <biosci-server at net.bio.net> = un/subscribes
   Archives  = http://www.bio.net:80/hypermail/ANNELIDA/
   Resources = http://biodiversity.uno.edu/~worms/annelid.html
--


More information about the Annelida mailing list

Send comments to us at biosci-help [At] net.bio.net