Dear colleagues,
There seems to be no priority rule for family names. When we link an
author's last name to a family name it should be because of that colleague
made a "modern" approach to the study of the group. For example, I employ
Maldanidae Grube 1867 instead of Maldanidae Malmgren 1867 (see Revista de
Biologia Tropical, 1991, 39(2):269-278); I'm not sure about the strict
priority but if you compare both papers, it's obvious that it was Grube the
first one to define the family, to recognize morphological patterns in it as
well as the requirements to identify them. I would recommend a similar
approach to define which name is to be employed for flabelligerids.
The other point is that the family-group name (see articles 29, 35, 36) is
made using a selected genus-name. Such genus might not be representative or
it might not even be the first one to be described in the group and as far
as we agree on its usage, it will stay. For example, think about
Terebellidae and Amphitritinae; according to the principle of coordination
(art. 36), the subfamily name containing Terebella should be called
Terebellinae but we employ Amphitritinae! We are clear on this and there is
no complaint, so far.
Best wishes,
Sergio
La Ciencia del Tercer Mundo no está perdida, sino ignorada.
Third World Science is not lost (Sci. Amer. Aug. 1995:76),
just ignored.
Sergio I. Salazar-Vallejo
Depto. Ecología Acuática
ECOSUR, Apdo. Postal 424
Chetumal QR 77000 MEXICO
salazar at ecosur-qroo.mx
Tel. (983) 20115, 21666
Fax (983) 20447
http://www.ecosur.mx
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