The following genus names have multiple occurrences, e.g., one in plants, one in animals:
Stelis, Aotus, Oenanthe, Prunella, Diplotaxis
I’m sure there are more. I’m wondering if anyone knows of a genus name that has more than two.
The third use of the name would presumably be a bacterium. As far as I know, the genera of bacteria are handled by a different code of nomenclature and thus one could use a name already assigned to a plant, fungus, and/or animal.
Agreed. On the issue of getting the wrong one, this is one of the reasons I usually suggest a higher level taxon first and then suggest the genus. The one I encounter most frequently is Diplotaxis. If I just type that in, it seems to always default to the plant. But if I enter scarab first (no need to enter more letters for a Latin name) then I can refine it in the next step to Diplotaxis.
The easiest solution is to take that extra two seconds after you click the drop down menu to make sure the thumbnail matches what you are identifying.
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Currently haunted by ‘moths’ which have been IDed as moth bean. That is a bean, A Plant, not your moth.
If I could, I would mark this as the solution.
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There are many pairs and some triplets. See above:
- Homonymous taxa (List) ordered by rank, then by name
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I’m pretty sure I saw the genus Laura get confused with Lauraceae, but I don’t know the family enough to be sure that was the initial intent for that observation.
The same-name Sections in-genus are a small frustration.
On that note, there’s an impressive amount of things named something along the lines of Alatae give or take letters.
Oh, have we mentioned the common name confusions? I imagine we have (i might have even), but I’m not sure… seems to commonly come up with the orchids. I can think of donkey orchid and bee orchid off the top of my head, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Caladenia ever got mucked up with spiders.
Most interesting i ran into was the Hungarian common name for Trifolium mixing up with the clam genus Here. I think that was the spelling.
the (now broken?) hemihomonym database appears to have included 12 examples of names reused under the botanical/mycological, zoological, and bacteriological codes: Catenococcus, Gordonia, Kingella, Lawsonia, Leptonema, Microcyclus, Moorella, Morganella, Rhodococcus, Rothia, Spirulina, and Stenocybe. IRMNG doesn’t list a bacterial Stenocybe or a zoological Catenococcus, Spirulina might only be in the list because of the cephalopod suborder by that name, and some of the other examples have apparently been synonymized and are no longer in active use for one or more of the three—but at least Gordonia, Lawsonia, Leptonema, Moorella, Morganella, and Rothia are still in use for three different genus-group taxa under three different nomenclatural codes
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Another example that can be confusing when using a search engine. Echidna is the more widely used common name for the spiny anteaters Tachyglossus spp . It is also the genus name for a branch of Pacific moray eels.
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