Vipera Garsault, 1764

Dubois, Alain & Bour, Roger, 2010, The nomenclatural status of the nomina of amphibians and reptiles created by Garsault (1764), with a parsimonious solution to an old nomenclatural problem regarding the genus Bufo (Amphibia, Anura), comments on the taxonomy of this genus, and comments on some nomina created by Laurenti (1768), Zootaxa 2447, pp. 1-52 : 31-32

Vipera Garsault, 1764

The plate 666 of Garsault (1764) shows his Vipera or “Vipere”, clearly an “asp viper”, a common species in western Europe, currently known as Vipera aspis ( Linnaeus, 1758) (family VIPERIDAE Oppel, 1811 a). In agreement with this figure, we hereby designate Coluber aspis Linnaeus, 1758 as nucleospecies of Vipera Garsault, 1764 . As discussed below, the latter generic nomen is both a senior hadromonym and senior doxisonym of Vipera Laurenti, 1768 .

Laurenti’s (1768: 99) genus Vipera was described with ten prenucleospecies. The nomina of two of them, Vipera Francisci Redi and Vipera Mosis Charas , are trinomina, but, as discussed above, they can be “saved” through the use of Article 11.9.5, and must now be spelt Vipera francisciredi and Vipera mosischaras .

Gmelin (1789: 1091) created the nomen Coluber redi . He mentioned the nomen Vipera Francisci Redi in its synonymy, so his nomen must be considered an autoneonym of Vipera francisciredi Laurenti, 1768 , as acknowledged by Mertens & Wermuth (1960: 195) and McDiarmid et al. (1999: 393). The nomen Coluber redi Gmelin, 1789 is an invalid junior isonym of Vipera francisciredi Laurenti, 1768 , therefore a nomen distinct from the latter. It was not part of the prenucleospecies of the genus Vipera Laurenti, 1768 , and is therefore not eligible for nucleospecies designation for the latter.

As a consequence, Fitzinger’s (1843: 28) designation of this nominal species (as “ Vip. Redii Latr.”) as nucleospecies of Vipera , is invalid. It is therefore in error that Stejneger (1936: 140) wrote: “ This being Laurenti’s Vipera francisci redi which equals [sic] Coluber aspis Linnaeus , the latter becomes the genotype of Vipera ”. This statement is twice wrong because neither Coluber redi nor Coluber aspis were members of the prenucleospecies of Vipera Laurenti, 1768 . However, some subsequent authors ( Mertens & Müller 1940: 54; McDiarmid et al. 1999: 389) followed this error and considered Coluber redi Gmelin, 1789 as the nucleospecies of Vipera Laurenti, 1768 . Mertens & Wermuth’s (1960: 194) subsequent mention of Vipera francisci redi as “ species typica ” of Vipera Laurenti, 1768 was the first to cite this biological species under the nomen used by Laurenti (1768). This statement was repeated by Bruno (1985: 40). Although based on a wrong interpretation, this would indeed be the valid designation of a nucleospecies for this genus if it was not predated by another designation. As a matter of fact, and even if they ignored it later, Mertens & Müller (1928: 51) had previously designated Vipera illyrica Laurenti, 1768 as nucleospecies of Vipera Laurenti, 1768 . This nominal species was part of the prenucleospecies of the genus, so this designation, which is the first Code -compliant one to have been published, is valid. The nomen Vipera illyrica is a junior doxisonym of Vipera ammodytes ( Linnaeus, 1758) (see Mertens & Wermuth 1960: 194).

Vipera Laurenti, 1768 is therefore an invalid junior doxisonym of Vipera Garsault, 1764 . As both taxa Coluber aspis Linnaeus, 1758 and Vipera illyrica Laurenti, 1768 are currently referred by all authors to the same genus Vipera and even to the same “group” (e.g., Obst 1983) or subgenus Vipera (e.g., Mallow et al., 2003), the shift of authorship and date of the nomen of this genus has no disturbing nomenclatural consequences and must be implemented, as already suggested by Welter-Schultes & Klug (2009: 238). Therefore no change is required in the binomina of the 27 species currently recognized in this genus ( Mallow et al. 2003) and their subspecies. The only change needed in their nominal-complexes is the inclusion of the author’s name and date between parentheses, to point to the transfer from Vipera Laurenti, 1768 to Vipera Garsault, 1764 .