question re: Petition for declaring Morrison Formation ornithopods as nomina dubia

[Ryan Rogers]

Dear List Members,

Longtime listener, first time caller. 

I've been reading about basal ornithopods and am aware of Barrett and Maidments' call to declare many of the original Morrison Formation ornithopods as nomina dubia.

What is the status of their petition? (is petition the correct term?)

What is the process by which this sort of decision is made? 

What impact would this have on future studies and phylogenetic analyses? 

What impact would it have on past studies, if any?

Thank you for your consideration!

I'll hang up and listen,

Ryan Rogers 

(big DML fan)

[Adam Yates]

There is a lot to unpack with your query, and I am not going to go into all of it in this one reply. I will, however, point out that bestowing the status of nomen dubium is not an official nomenclatural act regulated by the ICZN (so no petition required). It is merely the stated opinion of a taxonomist, or taxonomists and it is either accepted or not by the general scientific community and may be subject to revision when new information arises.

Adam Yates

[Skye McDavid]

Hi Ryan, 

There is no official process or petition by which something is made a nomen dubium. If an author believes a nominal species to be non diagnosable, they may describe it as a nomen dubium. Subsequent authors may agree or disagree with this. 

Barrett and Maidment's study is published, so their taxonomic opinion that these species are nomina dubia is already out in the world and citable. 

What impact this will have on future studies has yet to be seen. Future authors may either accept Barrett and Maidment's conclusions, or reject them and attempt to rediagnose some of the species that Barrett and Maidment consider dubious. 

Hope this helps, 

Skye

Skye McDavid
(she/her)
https://www.skyemcdavid.com/
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[Thomas Richard Holtz]

Greetings,

It is not in fact a petition; it is an assessment and interpretation of the data by professional scientists.

There is no "decision" here as such; other researchers will follow it (if they are convinced by the argumentation) or ignore it (but, if so, they will be compelled for their justification in rejecting it.)

As they have noted in some previous work, there are specimens which have not been described in detail (the Drinker specimens; some of the specimens referred to in museum exhibits as "Othneilosaurus", etc.) which need to be studied in detail to see if they represent diagnostic specimens of known species, possibly new species, etc.

I hope this helps,

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[Ryan Rogers]

Dear Adam, Skye and Thomas,

Thank you very much for your detailed, thoughtful and swift replies. I really appreciate it! 

Have a terrific weekend,

Ryan

p.s. Tom, you were a really great guest on episode 54 of the Juras-Sick Park-Cast ;)