GENERIC NAMES OF THE FAMILY STAPHYLINIDAE 5 



A name may belong in several of the categories at once, as 5, 6, and 

 7. An emended name that is a junior homonym may also be a junior 

 synonym. It might also turn out that it was a misidentification or 

 even a nomen nudum. 



Generic and subgeneric names as outlined above are the names 

 properly applied to genera and subgenera respectively. Article 6 of 

 the Rules states: "Generic and subgeneric names are subject to the 

 same rules and recommendations, and from a nomenclatural stand- 

 point they are coordinate, that is, they are of the same value." Thus 

 in determining priority, genotypes, and other nomenclatural matters, 

 these two groups of names are treated as one. 



When certain groups of species are listed as subgenera rather than 

 as genera, however, a zoological factor has been introduced — the 

 recognition of the zoological category (subgenus) of those groups, 

 This is exactly similar to the assignment of certain so-called groups 

 and their names to synonymy. Once this zoological factor has been 

 introduced, the subgeneric names (and synonyms) assume a status 

 quite different from that of generic names. For example, in listing 

 the species in a certain genus, a writer chooses not to make use of the 

 subgenera that have been proposed. In effect, he deals with the entire 

 genus at once (as he must, for example, in determining specific homon- 

 ymy). If he desires to list the generic synonyms, he must include 

 among them the subgenera, which for the purpose of that particular 

 moment are equal to them in status. It is obvious that at this point 

 the subgeneric names and the junior synonyms are of equal rank but 

 are not on a plane with the generic name. The recognition of their 

 zoological status through the category assigned to the concepts they 

 represent makes it impossible to treat them as coordinate with the 

 generic name. 



Again, in citing the number of genera in a family or other higher 

 group, we count only the true genera as we recognize them, paying 

 no attention to any subgenera. For this purpose the subgenera are on 

 a lower level with which we are not presently concerned. 



In short, in anything that involves recognition of the fact that a 

 name applies to a subgenus and not to a genus, the subgeneric name 

 has a status that is quite different from that of a generic name. This 

 is not a contradiction of Article 6, since this is a zoological considera- 

 tion, not a nomenclatural one. For example, the determination of 

 genotypes is a strictly nomenclatural function, but it has no nomen- 

 clatural use. The fixation of a genotype will not fix the name of any 

 zoological group until the zoological status of the group is worked out. 

 Thus the purpose of the nomenclatural fixing of genotypes is the tying 

 of names to zoological entities so that recognition of zoological iden- 

 tity (and sometimes also nomenclatural synonymy) can determine 

 the correct name. 



