Centrocnemidinae Miller, 1956

Rédei, Dávid & Tsai, Jing-Fu, 2011, The assassin bug subfamilies Centrocnemidinae and Holoptilinae in Taiwan (Hemiptera: Heteroptera: Reduviidae), Acta Entomologica Musei Nationalis Pragae 51 (2), pp. 411-442 : 413-414

Subfamily Centrocnemidinae Miller, 1956

Centrocneminae Miller, 1956: 223 . Type genus: Centrocnemis Signoret, 1852 . Centrocnemidinae : KERZHNER (1992: 47). Emendation.

Nomenclature. SIGNORET (1852) explicitly gave the etymology of Centrocnemis , the type genus of the subfamily, as follows: ‘de κεντρόν, éperon [= spine], et de κνήμη, jambe [= leg or calf (of leg)]’. The subfamily was established by MILLER (1956) as Centrocneminae . KERZHNER (1992) emended the spelling to Centrocnemidinae without any comment.

Although the generic name is derived from the Greek noun ΚΝήμη, it was substituted with the Latin noun cnemis, in genitive singular cnemidis, which will result in the stem cnemid -. Therefore we consider Centrocnemidinae as the grammatically correct spelling. Kerzhner’s (1992) act was a justified emendation under the third edition of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature being in effect that time (cf. ICZN 1985, Articles 32b, 32c(iii): ‘An original spelling is an «incorrect original spelling» if […] in the case of a family-group name, it […] is based on the incorrectly formed stem of a generic name’; Article 32d: ‘An incorrect original spelling is to be corrected; it has no separate availability in the original form, and cannot, in that form, enter into homonymy or be used as a replacement name’). The same act must be considered as unjustified emendation under the current Code: in Article 32.5 ( ICZN 1999) family names formed from an incorrectly formed stem of a generic name were not considered as incorrect original spelling, therefore it is to be preserved unaltered under Article 32.3. As a consequence of Article 86.3, although it was proposed in a code-compliant way, KERZHNER’ s (1992) act will become unjustified emendation from 1 January 2000. However, we consider retroactive application of Article 32 of the current Code undesirable and destabilizing.

After 1992 some of the authors used the spelling Centrocneminae ( BISWAS et al. 1994, SCHUH & SLATER 1995, TOMOKUNI & CAI 2002, LIN 2003, AMBROSE 2006, WEIRAUCH 2008 and several morphological papers by the same author partly with coauthors, LI et al. 2009), others used Centrocnemidinae ( PUTSHKOV & PUTSHKOV 1996, POPOV & PUTSHKOV 1998, ISHIKAWA 2005, PUTSHKOV & PLUOT- SIGWALT 2008, TRUONG et al. 2010). Few papers that mention this subfamily have been published since 1992, and neither of the two spellings outweigh significantly the other in the number of occurrences. Therefore, it is impossible to recognize either of them as being in ‘prevailing usage’.

Since apparently Centrocnemidinae is the grammatically correct spelling, the original spelling was validly emended by KERZHNER (1992), and none of the alternative spellings seems to be in prevailing usage, we prefer to use Cetrocnemidinae in favour of Centrocneminae .