Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
A single type specimen is called a
holotype;
multiple type specimens are
called series of
paratypes
. Other names are available for special kinds of type
specimens.
Ichnogenera are not based on type specimens, but on
type ichnospecies
.An
ichnogenus is therefore more of an abstraction than an ichnospecies: a set of
sets. An ichnogenus may contain any number of additional ichnospecies, but
if some of the ichnospecies are later split off, then the type ichnospecies remains
with the ichnogenus for which it is the name bearer, regardless of how incon-
venient this may be for the researcher. In practice, many researchers use only
ichnogeneric names for trace fossils, but this is a short cut; new ichnogenera
must be based on type ichnospecies to be available.
A new name must be available, that is, it must not have been used before
within the areas covered by any one code. However, because plants and animals
are covered by different codes, and ichnologists currently act as though all trace
fossils were covered by the zoological
Code
(though inconveniently, they are
not!), it is possible for a trace fossil to have the same name as a plant.
For instance, the trace fossil
Hartsellea
Rindsberg, 1994
and the fossil plant
Hartsellea
Gastaldo et al., 2006
were both named for the Hartselle Sandstone.
Determining whether a name has been published before can often be accom-
plished by computer searches; the
Zoological Record, Biological Abstracts,
GeoRef,
and similar databases such as that of
Knaust (2012)
should be consulted
before publication. A genus or species can have only one valid name. If a name
is determined to be a junior synonym of an older name, the senior synonym is
used in favor of the junior one. (If the priority is ambiguous, for instance, if two
synonyms were erected in the same issue of one journal, the “first reviser” of the
work is allowed the privilege of deciding which name to use henceforth, so long
as the reviser announces that this is a definite choice.)
A new name can be in any language and indeed may consist of a random
combination of Latin letters, if it is pronounceable. But ideally, a new ichno-
generic name should be in Latin or latinized Greek and follow the grammatical
rules of Botanical Latin, which is a late dialect of Latin with a specialized
vocabulary developed by naturalists, in which whole books were formerly writ-
ten (
Stearn, 1992
). As Latin is no longer routinely learned by zoologists, a dis-
tinct falling off has occurred in new Latin names, but Latin remains important in
botany and botanists may be consulted on the matter.
The two languages should not be mixed within a single word, though lat-
inizing the ending is acceptable. Compounds are usual, because it is almost
impossible to find a simple Latin or Greek word that can conceivably refer
to plants or animals that has not already been published as a generic name. It
is no longer easy to find a reasonable compound based on two roots, and com-
pounds of three roots are generally too long. Many ichnologists have, therefore,
followed
Seilacher's (1953)
and
Frey's (1973)
advice by constructing new ich-
nogenera based on a root followed by the latinized Greek -
ichnus,
meaning
“trace”:
Hillichnus
to honor Gary Hill,
Oichnus
to describe the O-shape of a
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