Re: [dinosaur] Origolestes, or the blurry limits of nomenclatural availability

As I said on Facebook, Fie on the authors, reviewers, and editors for doing
this.

On Fri, Dec 6, 2019 at 10:57 AM David Marjanovic <[email protected]>
wrote:

> Another extended abstract called "paper", of a paper that is called
> "supplementary information". Well, so far so good.
>
> The "paper" doesn't show any evidence of being registered in ZooBank, and
> neither, for that matter, does the paper. So far, still so good; this is
> Science, the print version will probably be out next week.
>
> The trick, as with *Lisowicia*, is that nobody knows if supplementary
> information to a validly published printed paper is considered validly
> published by the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature. Back in
> 2012, when the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature amended
> the Code to allow electronic publication under certain conditions, it seems
> not to have considered the existence of supp. inf. at all, so it's nowhere
> mentioned in the Code. As with *Lisowicia*, almost all the description of
> *Origolestes* is in the supp. inf..
>
> To be available, a validly published name must be 1) explicitly stated to
> be new, 2) provided with an explicitly designated type and 3) provided with
> a diagnosis that is meant to differentiate the taxon the name refers to
> from everything it could be confused with.
>
> Condition 1 will be fulfilled as soon as the "paper" comes out in print:
> the second paragraph begins with "*Origolestes lii*, gen. et sp. nov.".
>
> Condition 2 will also fulfilled: the legends to figures 1 and 2 state that
> "V14383-1" is the holotype. (It is nowhere mentioned what collection that
> is, but it should be obvious from context, and indeed the supp. inf. says
> it's the IVPP.)
>
> Condition 3 will not be fulfilled by the "paper" as far as I can tell.
> There is quite a bit of description of spalacotherioids ("symmetrodonts" in
> the narrowest sense) generally, but no statement intended to differentiate
> *Origolestes* from other members of that group. This is in stark contrast
> to the "supp. inf.", which spends five and a half single-spaced pages on
> this.
>
> The worst-case scenario is that the "supp. inf." is not considered validly
> published and the "paper", by failing to contain a diagnosis, does not
> establish the name. In that case, the name is not available: it does not
> even compete for priority against later synonyms or homonyms, it's "not
> even wrong", it simply doesn't officially exist. I really need to steal the
> time to write to the Commission about this (and a few other issues).
>
> Fun fact: from reading the "paper", you'd think all seven authors of the
> publication are authors of the name. But the "supp. inf." disagrees,
> exempting the deceased Li from the authorship of "*Origolestes lii* gen.
> and sp. nov. Mao, Hu, Wang, Hill-Chase, Smith et Meng"; it adds: "Species
> name honors professor Chuankui Li for his contributions to the study of
> early mammals." Page 1 of the "supp. inf." explains why there are two
> deceased authors (Hu and Li) on the paper: "The first specimen (V13604) was
> obtained by Yaoming Hu in 2003, and in the following year V14383-1 (the
> holotype), V14383-2, and V14384 were collected by Chuankui Li from the
> Lujiatun beds at Shangyuan, Beipiao, Liaoning, China."
>
> Gesendet: Donnerstag, 05. Dezember 2019 um 20:13 Uhr
> Von: "Ben Creisler" <[email protected]>
>
> A new paper:
>
> Origolestes lii gen. et sp. nov.
>
> Fangyuan Mao, Yaoming Hu, Chuankui Li, Yuanqing Wang, Morgan Hill Chase,
> Andrew K. Smith & Jin Meng (2019)
> Integrated hearing and chewing modules decoupled in a Cretaceous stem
> therian mammal.
> Science: eaay9220 (advance online publication)
> DOI: 10.1126/science.aay9220
>


-- 

Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
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