Re: Monotypic genera and the PhyloCode

[Michael de Sosa <stygimoloch81@hotmail.com>]

> From: "T. Michael Keesey" <mightyodinn@yahoo.com>

> Furthermore, as pointed out above, there are hardly any cases where a genus 
> is
> unequivocally monotypic. And even where it may seem to be, there may be
> literature that is being overlooked. And even if that is not the case, 
> there
> may be a desire to place future discoveries in a new species of that genus.
>
> Of course, if _Minmi_ were converted to a clade or used as a species 
> address,
> it could still be used; it's not as though there is a proposal to convert 
> only
> non-monotypic genera.

All right, good point. In reality there is probably a sp. out there 
somewhere for every supposedly monotypic genus, throwing a wrench in the 
works. So there goes that idea.

Still, there ought to be a way to conserve the names of currently monotypic 
genera in a meaningful way. Like as a stem group based on a type specimen 
and excluding all other type specimens unless they are found to actually 
represent the same species. Or as a stem group based on the autapomorphies 
of that type specimen, in such a way that if a new specimen was found to 
have some, but not all, of those apomorphies then it could be assigned to a 
new species within the same "genus"... but then the definition of the 
"genus" would have to change to only include those apomorphies shared by 
*both* species. Hmmm. I guess this is a discussion for that other list now. 
Even if it's just a clade address or a marker or something, I still think 
using an existing generic name is preferable to a number, both for 
historical and aesthetic reasons (what's the point of naming a species 
melanolimnetes if it can't have Eucritta in front of it? :)).

Mike D

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