Re: The Dinosaur Folios #2

[Dinogeorge@xxxxxxx]

In a message dated 96-05-18 20:42:41 EDT, mdl1002@cus.cam.ac.uk (Mark Leney)
writes:

>So are you saying that Marsh made an etymological error in forming the 
>name in the description or that he just made an error in using a name 
>from a description by someone else?

No, Marsh himself coined the name Ceratopsia from the generic name
_Ceratops_; he did not misspell a previously coined name. The proper way to
form the name is to drop the terminal "s" before appending the plural suffix
"-ia." This also applies to the family name Ceratopsidae, which Marsh also
coined; it should be spelled Ceratopidae. For example, other generic names
rooted in _ops_, such as _Eryops_ and _Brachyops_, are type genera of the
correctly formed family names Eryopidae and Brachyopidae.

> If the latter it hardly counts as an 
>etymological error, more like a spelling mistake. If the former, then 
>error or no, the name stands as spelt in the original description, that 
>is one of the usual rules of nomencalture; it avoids confusion; obviously 
>it's an interesting footnote to the nomenclature that there may be an 
>error in the formation of the name, but a describer can use any available 
>name he pleases and that stands or falls on the basis of phylogeny not 
>etymology.

Right. But ICZN rules do not presently govern taxonomic names above the
family-group level. So we are not _rule-bound_ to use the spelling
"Ceratopsia," and we may alter the spelling if we so choose (getting everyone
to do this is the hard part). On the other hand, ICZN rules (Article
32c[iii]) currently mandate that incorrectly formed family-level names _must_
be corrected (original author retaining the attribution, of course) when they
are detected. In particular, Ceratopsidae is an incorrect original spelling
in having an incorrectly formed suffix. But, again, this will change if the
proposed emendations to the Code are approved, and an ill-formed name such as
Ceratopsidae would be retained by virtue of its generally accepted usage.

Incidentally, emending the incorrect original spellings Ceratopsia,
Ceratopsidae, Ceratopsinae, Protoceratopsidae, and so forth is not original
with me. The corrections were published as long ago as 1969 by Rodney Steel
(_Handbuch der Palaeoherpetologie_ part 15, Ornithischia), and perhaps even
earlier. I'd just like to see them take hold.