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| Parent: | Dipsadinae [Taxonomy; edit]
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| Rank: | genus (displays as Genus)
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| Link: | Heterodon
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| Extinct: | no |
| Always displayed: | yes (major rank) |
| Taxonomic references: | "Heterodontinae" is a subfamily of sharks; this problem is discussed in Appendix I of Grazziotin, F. G., H. Zaher, R. W. Murphy, G. Scrocchi, M. A. Benavides, Y.-P. Zhang, and S. L. Bonattoh. 2012. Molecular phylogeny of the New World Dipsadidae (Serpentes: Colubroidea): a reappraisal. Cladistics 28:437-459: "The shark family Heterodontidae (based on the genus Heterodontus Blainville, 1816) dates from Gray (1851: 65), but its use as the snake family Heterodontidae (based on the genus Heterodon Latreille, 1801) dates from Bonaparte (1845) and it has not been used in the literature since. Thus both the genus and family names for snakes have priority over the sharks. However, resurrection of the family name Heterodontidae for snakes (subfamily Heterodontinae in Vidal et al., 2007) causes unnecessary confusion owing to the long-standing use of the name for sharks (e.g. Compagno, 2002; Baldwin, 2005). Consequently, Rossman and Wilson (1965) and Zaher et al. (2009) argued that the family name should be applied only to sharks in the interest of maintaining nomenclatorial stability, a position that contrasts strongly with that of Vidal et al. (2007, 2010). According to Art. 52.2 of the Code, when two names ‘‘are homonyms, only the senior, as determined by the Principle of Priority, may be used as a valid name’’. We believe that if this clade of snakes continuously appears in phylogenetic studies, then it is desirable to petition the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature to set aside use of the family name for the snakes in favour of the sharks in the interest of nomenclatorial stability. An alternative nomenclature would be to change the spelling of the shark family to Heterodontusidae. In any case, we suggest the North American relictual Xenodontinae (sensu Pinou, 1993; Pinou et al., 2004) should not be referred to as the subfamily Heterodontinae until a well defined nomenclatural resolution is obtained." See also Rossman, D. A. and L. D. Wilson. 1965. Comments on the revival of the colubrid snake subfamily Heterodontinae. Herpetologica 20:284-285. |
| Parent's taxonomic references: | – |