Regarding Paralithoxus jariensis in Cat-eLog

[lfinley58]

MOD COMMENT: FYI, I've consolidated all the posts/threads related to this CLOG data error into a single thread.

Hello - I have noted the following conflicting information regarding the new entry on Paralithoxus jariensis:

Scientific Name
Paralithoxus jariensis

Pronunciation
bath ee klar ee ass.
Etymology
From the Greek bathys meaning deep and clarias also from the Greek chlaros, meaning lively; in reference to the ability of clarias to live for long periods out of water.

Lee

[lfinley58]

Hi again, I also noted the following mismatch of info on the entry for Paralithoxus raso.

Scientific Name
Paralithoxus raso

Pronunciation
bath ee klar ee ass.
Etymology
From the Greek bathys meaning deep and clarias also from the Greek chlaros, meaning lively; in reference to the ability of clarias to live for long periods out of water.

Lee

[lfinley58]

I have also noted the same incorrect information previously noted on the new entries for Paralithoxus pallidimaculatus and P. boujardi.

Lee

[bekateen]

Hi Lee,

That would be because the info is in the Genus data field for

Paralithoxus

. So it's going to be repeated on each species' page. The incorrect data goes with the genus

Bathyclarias

.

I've submitted corrections. Thank you.

Cheers, Eric

[lfinley58]

Eric,

Thanks for the follow-up and explanation re the non-matching situation.

Just for interest, why (how?) would Clariidae information show up in a Loricariidae presentation?

Lee

[bekateen]

Hi Lee,

Not exactly sure how it came to be. Certainly it can occur when one existing genus becomes invalid. We can't delete the genus, so we rename it to the next new genus to be described. In that case, the old info will follow the transfer to the new name. That would be my expectation in this case, except that

Bathyclarias

is a valid genus. So I see no reason to have renamed it. I suppose it's possible that Bathyclarias used to be valid, became invalid, and then later was validated. But that's just speculation.

Cheers, Eric

[lfinley58]

Thanks for the explanation Eric. It is appreciated. It is interesting that an invalid genus can't be deleted.
Have a good one.

Lee

[bekateen]

If you think about it, invalid genera persist in science too. They don't get deleted. Their names are kept in perpetuity as synonyms to whatever species they were originally assigned.

So imagine what happens when we have a genus with a few species, and they all get reassigned to another genus... the original genus is now "empty" of valid species. So it can no longer exist as a genus within the CLOG, but it can be a synonym of the valid genus. But we are stuck with the fact that the CLOG has an entry for this invalid genus, so the thing to do is rename it the next time a new valid genus is described.

Cheers,
Eric

[Jools]

This is all correct, in essence, a genus that has no species is usually because they've all been moved somewhere else. So, the genus is "recycled" this time

Bathyclarias

was recycled as

Paralithoxus

. The wrinkle then was that the former genus got some species.

Anyway, for quite a while the 'bot that checked all this and told me if I needed to correct data stopped working (it's still not talking to fishbase - they've removed some pages) and so I've been slowly going through all the spp. in the catelog adjusting them. I completed this recently having made 1,200 changes.

It's all corrected now - but still reviewing images... And, as you've spotted, the 'bot is limited and can't find certain issue like the one reported here.

Jools

[Jools]

Thanks both for picking this up, the corrections have been made.

Jools

[bekateen]

[lfinley58]

Thanks Jools and Eric.

Lee