Back in 2023 another user and friend of mine (@gafischer) came to me with a request: to add some species to Pampa, a genus of Zygaenidae moth, to th iNat database. Much to my surprise, at first glance the only Pampa that returned on the taxon search was a genus of Hummingbirds. Digging a little deeper I found out that both genera were present on iNat, both were up to that moment valid and that we had discovered a homonym according to the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. with the help of @paolafreitas we ended up writing down a short research article that was published today, a result of almost a whole year of work! It is called:
There and Back Again: On the Homonymy, Solution and Re-Homonymy of Pampa Walker 1854 (Hexapoda: Lepidoptera: Zygaenidae) and Pampa Reichenbach, 1854 (Aves: Apodiformes: Trochilidae)
Available at: https://www.mapress.com/zt/article/view/zootaxa.5501.4.9
If any of you are interested in the paper, send me a message so I can send you a copy! This is also a collective effort from me and some other curators and friends (@enricotosto96 , @josev_ge , @tiagolubiana , @aranda87 ) to register, organize and update as much as we can of the Brazilian taxa.
I’d be interested in the paper! Or can you post the abstract, or give a short summary of what happened to the names in the end? “Homonymy and re-homonymy” certainly sounds curious
If you guys want the next challenge I recommend fixing the homonymy happening with the genus Annona which is now valid for the linnean plant genus Annona (Annonaceae 170sp+ widespread) and also for the plant bug genus Annona (Hemiptera: Miridae 9sp, some from Brazil). Occasionally I have to go around and fix mis-IDs of the plant when someone picks the insect instead, so having this fixed would be great.
For some leading clues: The plant name obviously came first (1753), so it looks an easy fix by just attributing a new name to the bug. However the history of the insect name is quite confusing and we need to evaluate it before blindly giving it a new name as some of the older names might be valid and thus, should be revalidated.
Annona (Miridae) is attributed to Distant 1884, who in the same work creates a new name for it to avoid problems with the plant. The name Ania is then proposed.
However this new name Ania also belongs to an orchid genus (Ania, Lindl. 1831) which precedes the bug.
The name Ania was replaced by an author called Strand in 1928 in a work where many other names were fixed in several realms. The new name proposed is Aniata
Now here things get a bit confusing for me. The platform On-line Systematic Catalog of Plant Bugs (Insecta: Heteroptera: Miridae) which is regarded as the authority for names in this family says the following:
family: Miridae
Well, they listed Aniata as Anita, which is a genus name of Notodontidae moths.
So what happened here? Is it just a typo in that name? Where is the work that says Anita can’t be used and Annona is revalidated? Should we go with Aniata instead (which in a quick search should be fine)?
Since the name Annona is applied to a plant and an animal in your example, these are hemihomonyms and both are considered valid. The same name can be used in different kingdoms under the scope of two different ruling codes (ICZN for zoological, ICN for botanical); homonyms are within the same kingdom.
You can even have the same binomial for two taxa, provided they are in different kingdoms.
Oh wow, I didn’t know about that! Are these hemihomonyms common? I can’t believe in all those years that this is the first case I found… Shame on me for not knowing that, specially when I’m a curator… Time to start some biology course. Happy Biologist Day by the way (in Brazil it is in September 3rd at least)
Edit to add - above I’m referring more to two taxa sharing the same binomial. The same generic epithet at use in different kingdoms is more common (though still not overwhelmingly so).
I think it is not so rare, especially annoying if both organisms occur in the same area. Here I have Linaria amethystea (toadflax) and Linaria cannabina (linnet) and Iris planifolia and Iris oratoria (Mantodea). Once I read something about Oryctes nevadensis. Here we have the rhinoceros beetle Oryctes nasicornis and I thought, how cool, there seems to be an endemic species in the Sierra Nevada - of course I was thinking about Spain. Turned out, I was completely wrong, Oryctes belongs to the nightshades and the Sierra Nevada is in USA. I think it is endemic, though.
Whether they are homonyms or hemihomonyms, they are easy to confuse.
I was just adding IDs to Proboscidea (plant genus) but the first option is Proboscidea (animal order). The ID thumbnails are small enough that I often don’t recognize my mistake until after I submit the ID…
