Acanthaster Gervais, 1841

Haszprunar, Gerhard & Spies, Martin, 2014, An integrative approach to the taxonomy of the crown-of-thorns starfish species group (Asteroidea: Acanthaster): A review of names and comparison to recent molecular data, Zootaxa 3841 (2), pp. 271-284 : 276-277

Acanthaster Gervais, 1841

Original source. Gervais (1841): page 474.

https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=xJQ5AAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&authuser=0&hl=de&pg=GBS.PA474

Nomenclatural status. Available name. Replacement name for Echinaster Gray, 1840 [December]: 281, which is permanently unavailable due to junior primary homonymy with Echinaster Müller & Troschel in Müller, 1840 [May]: 102.

Type species. “ Acanthaster echinus Ellis et. Soland.” ( Gervais 1841: 474) [= Asterias echinites (Ellis & Solander in Watt, 1786)], by subsequent designation of Fisher (1919: 441); see remarks (1)–(2) below.

Remarks. (1) Gervais (1841: 474) listed the species he included in Acanthaster , as follows: " A. echinus, Ellis et Soland. , pl. 60–62; A. echinites, Lamk. ; Echinast. Ellisii, Gray, loc. cit. (Amérique du Sud.)— A. solaris, Naturforcher [sic!], xxviii[sic!], pl., f. 2." In this, Gervais treated as valid only the two names " A. echinus " and A. solaris , the former of which was listed with three 'synonyms'. The general arrangement and some of the erroneous data in it followed those in Gray (1840) —see Review Part A, species (4), remark (3)—but with the justified correction that " A. Echinus " (= A. echinites ) enjoyed nomenclatural priority over Echinaster ellisii .

(2) To the present authors' knowledge, the earliest published statement concerning the type species of Acanthaster Gervais is by Fisher (1919: 441), who wrote " Type, A. echinus (= A. planci Linnaeus. )", and in his synonymic listing under A. planci , " Acanthaster echinus Gervais, Dict. sci. nat., suppl., vol. 1, 1841, p. 474." These statements of Fisher's were made at a time when guidelines for zoological nomenclature were not nearly as settled and widely observed as they became some decades later. Examined today, A. echinus as mentioned in Gervais (1841) does not qualify as a separately available name, and the use of such names, e.g. in type-species designations, can lead to serious complications. Fortunately, the current Code of nomenclature (ICZN 1999) allows the essence of Fisher's (1919) statements to be accepted as a valid fixation of the type species. The involvement of the incorrect subsequent spelling Acanthaster echinus is ruled immaterial by Code Art. 67.6, other misquoted data (e.g., authorship credit to Gervais) are permissible under Art. 67.7.

Consequently, the available name for the type species of Acanthaster is A. echinites (Ellis & Solander) . The valid name to be used for this taxonomic species can depend on synonymy, if a senior synonym is determined either objectively (e.g. if two species names are based on one and the same name-bearing type specimen), or subjectively by any author arguing taxonomically for A. echinites being the junior synonym of an earlier available name.

While Fisher (1919) may be pardoned for any lack of 'nomenclatural awareness' reflected in his type-species designation, the same cannot be said of recent authors repeating those errors and even adding new ones. For example, Birkeland & Lucas (1990: 13) failed to understand the data explained in remark (1) above, and mistakenly claimed that in Gray (1840) and Gervais (1841) "there were already five species names, planci , echinus , echinites , solaris , and ellisii ". Rowe & Gates (1995) made yet another unfortunate addition by claiming that the type-species of Acanthaster had been established “by monotypy”. If only to avoid potential threats to the stability of nomenclature arising from the perpetuation of such flawed data, the corresponding entries on the WoRMS website (http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=205212), so far misleading, should be corrected as soon as possible in light of our findings.

Many papers mentioning starfish now placed in Acanthaster were published prior to the 20th century already, some in places so remote that we have not been able to access them yet. Therefore, it is conceivable that a valid type-species designation could still surface which predates that of Fisher's (1919). However, any such discovery could have more than minor consequences to nomenclature only if it fixed as the type species of Acanthaster the other one of Gervais' (1841) originally included species, A. solaris (Ellis & Solander) . Judging from the body of literature examined in the present study, we consider as negligible both, the likelihood of that happening and the effect it might have.