LISTRIODONTINAE Simpson, 1945

Pickford, Martin & Morales, Jorge, 2003, New Listriodontinae (Mammalia, Suidae) from Europe and a review of listriodont evolution, biostratigraphy and biogeography, Geodiversitas 25 (2), pp. 347-404 : 349

Subfamily LISTRIODONTINAE Simpson, 1945

NOTE ON THE AUTHORSHIP OF LISTRIODONTINAE Van der Made (1996) has proposed that Gervais (1859) and not Simpson (1945) was the author of the subfamily Listriodontinae on the grounds that the former author referred to a group “tribu de listriodontins”. However, resurrecting long forgotten names or authorship for supra-generic categories of zoological groups is not recommended by the latest edition of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature ( ICZN 1999). In the introduction (p. XXVIII, paragraph 11) it is clearly explained that “an author will be required (without a ruling by the Commission) not to displace a name which has been used as valid by at least 10 authors in 25 publications during the past 50 years, and encompassing a span of not less than ten years, by an earlier synonym or homonym which has not been used as valid since 1899”.

In this case, even though the family name Listriodontidae was erected by Roger (1882) and later by Lydekker (1884), according to the new provisions of the ICZN (1999) this should not be taken to mean that the subfamily Listriodontinae was erected by these authors, their publications appearing prior to the end of 1899. To my knowledge there have been only two papers published during the past 50 years which credit the subfamily Listriodontinae to authors other than Simpson (1945) and these are McKenna & Bell (1997) who give credit to Lydekker (1884) and Van der Made (1996) who gives it to Gervais (1859). Furthermore, there are no papers published during the 20 th century that attribute the subfamily name to any of these authors, but there are many that credit Simpson with creating it. For these reasons, we adhere to the latest version of the ICZN and continue to credit Simpson (1945), with the authorship of the subfamily Listriodontinae . This decision accepts the wish of the ICZN “to act in the interests of preserving established usage”. Otherwise, I could easily suggest that the subfamily be credit- ed to Roger (1882) who published the name Listriodontidae two years before Lydekker (1884) did, thereby nullifying the decision of McKenna & Bell (1997) to credit the name to Lydekker.