PlanetCatfish.com

When I click on the page for bagridae, it instead goes to "the genus bagridae", which is comprised of "bagridae sp. 1". When I try to click on the family (in the bar that displays genus, subfamily, then family) it just goes back to "the genus bagridae".

I see what you mean. I'm probably wrong, but it appears to be a URL redirect issue or some kind of faulty logic loop.

In terms of a URL redirect, the page for Bagridae still exists; it is http://www.planetcatfish.com/common/fam ... mily_id=08. But if you simply use the link to the family Bagridae, http://www.planetcatfish.com/bagridae, it doesn't redirect you to the family, but instead it takes you to this probably incorrect genus name and its associated species (sp. 1).

As a faulty logic loop, since Bagridae is a family name, Bagridae can't also be a genus name (scientifically, the suffix of the name suggests that it's a family name). But this "sp. 1" has gotten entered in the database with "Bagridae" for both its family name and its genus name; as a result the coding seems to jump to the genus.

Cheers, Eric

It's because there is a genus and a family called bagridae in the database. I've renamed the genus bagridae_n (as in Bagridae n. sp. (1)) and so it should now be all OK?

Jools

Scratch that, there's a 31 bug with the admin page to rename a genus. I will need to fix that later, as I'm doing other things online at present and it looks like it will need a bit of time...

Jools

Jools wrote:It's because there is a genus and a family called bagridae in the database. I've renamed the genus bagridae_n (as in Bagridae n. sp. (1))

This goes back to my question: Is this a fish whose generic name really is "Bagridae" (can the same word be used both for a family name and a generic name? I thought the answer was no) or is it that this fish has no generic name? Since I'm not a taxonomist, systematist, or phylogeneticist, honestly I've never had to deal with a species description before that had neither a specific epithet or a generic name.

If "Bagridae" really can be given both as a family and generic name, then everything is as good as it can get until the fish gets more attention (sometime in the future) and is given a proper name.

And if no generic name has yet to be linked with this fish, then I imagine that "[Family name] n. sp." seems like the proper way to write the name out in long-hand; written in this manner, we are leaving open the possibilities that either this fish' genus is simply undetermined or that this fish represents a new genus. And I imagine that for the PC database, you can't leave the field for genus blank, so in the absence of a known genus, it would be simple to fill in the family name for the genus field.

But rather than look at it from a database perspective, is this how such a situation is typically handled in the taxonomic literature? I've read publications before where the authors describe animals without a given generic name as "[Family name] gen. n. sp. n." or "[Family name] n. gen. n. sp." But by definition, this format is declaring that the new species does not belong to any existing genus. Yet it's unclear to me that such a statement is applicable for the catfish in this particular case.

Honestly, I can't imagine what else you would do in this case besides either insert the family name in place of the generic name, or record the animal as "n. gen." Making matters more ambiguous, this particular little fish seems to be problematic because the CLOG lacks any reference to its source/origin or original discovery, so there's no apparent/easy way to look back and see what the discoverer had in mind.

I'm not trying to make this difficult, but it probably seems like I am. I apologize, and good luck Jools.
Cheers, Eric

EDIT: After reading my own post, I decided that I am making things too difficult. ... Yeah, never mind. Sorry.

bekateen wrote:Yet it's unclear to me that such a statement is applicable for the catfish in this particular case.

It will be described in a new genus and species, I just don't want to screw that up by going public with the name. Bad things will happen.

Jools

This is now resolved. The renamed bagrid's new name is a little ugly, but it will do until its description appears.

Cheers,

Jools