ENHYDRINI Régimbart, 1882

Gustafson, Grey T. & Miller, Kelly B., 2013, On the family- and genus-series nomina in Gyrinidae Latreille, 1810 (Coleoptera, Adephaga), Zootaxa 3731 (1), pp. 77-105 : 95

ENHYDRINI Régimbart, 1882

The Commission’s Opinion 720 (Anonymous 1964) fixed the issues with the generic nomen Enhydrus , but indicated that the family-series nomen was a junior homonym. The issue of the homonymy of this nomen was discussed by Brinck (1978) in his revision of the genus, noting that it was pre-occupied by ENHYDRINAE Gray, 1825 (for sea otters), which was already placed on the Official List of Family-group Names. According to Brinck (1978), “After contact with the secretary to the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature, Dr. Richard Melville, I propose a change of the spelling to Enhydreinae pending a decision of the International Commission.” But it would appear that this case was never pursued and remained unresolved. Özdikmen & Darilmaz (2010) submitted an official proposed emendation to resolve the issue of homonymy between these two family-series nomina.

Özdikmen & Darilmaz (2010) addressed the origins of the homonymy between both nomina. ENHYDRINI Gray, 1825 is based on the generic nomen Enhydra Fleming, 1822 , whereas ENHYDRINI Regimbart, 1882 is based on the generic nomen Enhydrus Laporte, 1834 . The resulting stems for both are Enhydr - resulting in the homonymy of the family-series nomina. Özdikmen & Darilmaz (2010), therefore, moved to have the official stem of Enhydrus Laporte, 1834 emended to Enhydrus-, resulting in the family-series nomen ENHYDRUSINI Regimbart, 1882 , which should be placed on the Official List of Family Group Names in Zoology whereas ENHYDRINI Régimbart, 1882 should be placed on the Official Index of Rejected and Invalid Family-Group Names in Zoology.

More recently, Bouchard et al. (2011) also addressed the issue of ENHYDRINI Regimbart, 1882, finding that an earlier family-series nomen, DINEUTINI Desmarest, 1851, had been applied to the same group of genera but predated ENHYDRINI Regimbart, 1882. Bouchard et al. (2011) invoked Article 35.5 of the ICZN to conserve the use of the younger name, ENHYDRINI Regimbart, 1882 due to its prevailing use.

Most recently the Commission (Anonymous 2012) moved to grant all of Özdikmen & Darilmaz’s (2010) proposed emendations to removal homonymy between ENHYDRINI Régimbart, 1882 and ENHYDRINI Gray, 1825 in Opinion 2297. Opinion 2297 (Anonymous 2012) resulted in the stem of Enhydrus Laporte, 1834 emended to Enhydrus -, the family-series nomen ENHYDRUSINI Régimbart, 1882 being placed on the Official List of Family Group Names in Zoology, and ENHYDRINI Régimbart, 1882 being placed on the Official Index of Rejected and Invalid Family-Group Names in Zoology.

Opinion 2297 (Anonymous 2012) corrected the issues with the homonomy of the nomen ENHYDRINI Régimbart, 1882, however the appropriate nomen to be applied to the taxon remains in question. The senior synonym DINEUTINI Desmarest, 1851 still has precedence via the Principle of Priority over the nomen ENHYDRINI Régimbart, 1882 (and its emendation ENHYDRUSINI Anonymous, 2012 ), as pointed out by Alonso-Zarazaga in Anonymous (2012). At the time of Bouchard et al. (2011), the subtribes DINEUTINA Desmarest, 1851 and ENHYDRINA Régimbart, 1882 were still recognized, but Miller & Bergsten (2012) recently subsumed the subtribes into a single tribe. Given the nomenclatural calamity of the original nomen of this taxon, the Principle of Priority should be followed giving the tribe the appropriate nomen of DINEUTINI Desmarest, 1851, with ENHYDRINA Régimbart, 1882 (as ENHYDRUSINA) remaining available, should the tribe be again split into subtribes. Opinion 2297 (Anonymous, 2012) merely fixed the homonomy regarding the nomen ENHYDRINI Régimbart, 1882, but did not protect it from the senior synonym DINEUTINI Desmarest, 1851 which has never been suppressed (Dubois, pers. com.). Therefore we promote the tribe formerly known as ENHYDRINI Régimbart, 1882 to be now known as the DINEUTINI Desmarest, 1851 following the Principle of Priority. We have changed the list of all the genera formerly associated with that nomen in order to apply to the tribe as currently understood. The current classification we provide, following Miller & Bergsten (2012), reflects this change.