4 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 2 46 



biguous and leads to confusion and dissension rather than to the stability 

 and universality of zoological nomenclature its designers envisioned. 

 Other methods for the conservation of well-known and widely used 

 zoological names are provided by the Code but are hardly needed for 

 animal groups that have been studied thoroughly and that have had their 

 literature and nomenclature repeatedly reviewed. On the other hand, 

 application of a law of conservation or limitation to groups such as the 

 cetaceans, with the taxonomy of most of their genera and species provisional 

 and their nomenclature correspondingly fluid, not only restricts freedom 

 of zoological thought but also tends to spawn new problems for every one 

 it purports to solve. 



The bulk of modern cetological literature is nontaxonomic ; the authors 

 tend to accept uncritically the scientific names they find in compiled 

 regional checklists and catalogs. For example, all compilers of current 

 checklists of mammals cite the universally used generic names Delphin- 

 apterus, Hyper oodon, and Balaenoptera from Lacepede's classic "Histoire 

 Naturelle des Getacees," published 1804, yet fail to recognize the clearly 

 described, fully documented, and figured Delphinus nesarnack (= Tursiops 

 truncatus) in the same book. Similarly, it is difficult to comprehend why 

 compilers categorize Dioplodon europaeus Gervais (=Mesoplodon europaeus= 

 Nodus europaeus) as a nomen nudum in a work of one date and then ignore 

 a valid proposal of the same name by the same author in a subsequent 

 work, which they cite for other names, including Tursiops Gervais. In 

 the same vein, modern compilers cite Mesoplodon Gervais from one opus 

 and Dioplodon Gervais from a later one, when both names are proposed 

 properly a few lines apart on the same page of the first work, with Dioplodon 

 taking precedence. In any case, the two names are antedated by Nodus 

 Wagler, which all modern compilers cite as a synonym of Hyperoodon 

 Lacepede while they treat its type species as a junior synonym of Mesoplodon 

 bidens Sowerby. Compilers who actually consult the works they cite 

 could hardly be guilty of such carelessness and oversight. 



Present rules of nomenclature, specifically Article 23 (b) of the Interna- 

 tional Code of Zoological Nomenclature, condone and even favor what 

 should be condemned as careless and bad nomenclatorial practices. For 

 example, one or two, rarely as many as three, specialists during each of the 

 last five or six generations have been interested particularly in the system- 

 atics of beaked whales. The results of most of these workers' efforts are 

 preserved in arm-long synonymies. One of the effects of Article 23(6) is 

 to permit each succeeding generation of workers to coin for itself a new 

 set of technical names or to use whatever older designations are most 

 convenient to a particular worker. Thus, there are 14 generic names for 

 beaked whales currently assigned to Mesoplodon. According to present 

 rules, two are junior homonyms and not available. Four are objective 

 synonyms of Mesoplodon, two of them senior synonyms, but none are avail- 



