Taxon authorship: a purely theoretical question

If the original article is lost, but there are references to this work in other articles, is this also considered "anonymous authorship"? In general, the rules for enclosing the author in square brackets are interesting, for example:
Lomographa temerata ([Denis et Schiffermuller], 1775)
Selenia lunularia (Hubner, [1788])
What's the difference? Such subtleties are not explicitly specified in the code.

I just don't know any cases where the original work gets lost. This could only have happened in the Linnean era with manual typing of books and their production in single copies. But still, someone was quoting them back then. I just don't know a single insect whose author is unknown.
Authorship in square brackets is when the authors are not listed anywhere, but are precisely known according to the testimonies of contemporaries. By the way, about the "division of labor" in the book by Denis and Schifermuller, discussions in the West still do not stop. Some cite only one of them as an author in a particular group.
Years in square brackets - when the exact year of publication is not specified, but is determined analytically (with a probability of error). Huebner also knows the interval of years (about 15, if I'm not mistaken) in which his major work was published, and sometimes the years are given something like this: [1796-1799]. As a result, different sources give different interpretations of the exact description of the same taxon, depending on the opinions of different analysts.

I'll add a few of my own fly in the ointment.

1. Names of taxa and their authors ' surnames should be given in Latin and without abbreviations. The & sign (ampersand) is a graphic abbreviation of the Latin preposition et. This is enough to avoid using the ampersand in the nomenclature. In addition, if even before the middle of the XIX century, the ampersand was even included in the English alphabet, now its use is regarded as an attempt to give the phrase a certain "elitism" or "foreignness" (in the Russian case) and is considered bad form. By the way, British authors, as a rule, do not sin with this, unlike American authors, which is probably due to the internal confidence of Americans in their navel-like nature or, conversely, the internal awareness of the secondary nature of their culture in relation to the European one. Complexes, however...

2. Initials should be placed before the authors ' surnames in cases where the existence of several authors with the same surnames is known for certain. This allows you to avoid discrepancies. This includes , for example, Fox, Morawitz, Saunders, Smith, Williams, and some others.

3. Since at the first mention of any taxon in the publication, its name should be given in full, that is, with all the authors and year of description, and at subsequent mentions (in contrast to the cited sources), the authors and year should be omitted, and the genus name should be given in abbreviated form (except when it is at the beginning). sentences), then the use of the phrase et al. doesn't make any sense.

4.Latin punctuation differs from English. In particular, when enumerating in English, a comma is placed if there are more than two homogeneous terms, even if the latter is preceded by the preposition and-X, Y, and Z. In Latin, as in Russian, in such cases, a comma is not placed before the preposition et or and.

5. Placing commas between authors ' surnames is logical and highly desirable, since some languages have double surnames, and the absence of commas can lead to confusion. (For example, what immediately came to mind: Alayo Dalmau, Alayo Soto, Alvarez Pereyra, Ramakrishna Aiyar, Reyes Villanueva).

6. Editorial problems (I won't point my finger at specific publications) :
- some publications require you to put a comma between the author's last name and the year of the taxon description, if this description is referenced in the list of references, but DO NOT put it if there is no such reference.
- in other publications, obviously, in order not to strain your brain at all, they completely refuse to put commas between the author's last name and the year of the taxon description.
- finally, for unknown reasons, they refuse to italicize generic and specific names. This is not critical in Cyrillic texts, but in the case of the Latin alphabet, it can lead to curiosities. In my practice, for example, there were cases when editors required references to publications of authors (in their opinion) with the names Nitela and Larissa, although these were just the names of genera mentioned a second time (i.e., without specifying the author and year of description). If it were italics, there would be no problem.

I will add my own portion of tar/poison. Sorry, but the above rather controversial statements are given as something obvious.

... The
& sign (ampersand) is a graphic abbreviation of the Latin preposition et. This is enough to avoid using the ampersand in the nomenclature.

Why?

In addition, if even before the middle of the XIX century, the ampersand was even included in the English alphabet, now its use is regarded as an attempt to give the phrase a certain "elitism" or "foreignness" (in the Russian case) and is considered bad form. By the way, British authors, as a rule, do not sin with this, unlike American authors, which is probably due to the internal confidence of Americans in their navel-like nature or, conversely, the internal awareness of the secondary nature of their culture in relation to the European one. Complexes, however...

"et", also known as the ampersand, comes from quite respectable Latin. That its use is "bad form" is surprising.

Apparently I communicate in an elite society

3. Since at the first mention of any taxon in the publication, its name should be given in full, that is, with all the authors and year of description, and at subsequent mentions (in contrast to the cited sources), the authors and year should be omitted, and the genus name should be given in abbreviated form (except when it is at the beginning). sentences), then the use of the phrase et al. doesn't make any sense.

The use cases of "et al." depend on the rules of a particular journal. In my humble opinion, the fewer abbreviations, the better - less confusion.

6. Editorial problems (I won't point my finger at specific publications) :

And you need to poke, because everything depends on the specific rules of a particular magazine.

- some publications require you to put a comma between the author's last name and the year of the taxon description, if this description is referenced in the list of references, but DO NOT put it if there is no such reference;
- in other publications, obviously, in order not to strain your brain at all, they completely refuse commas between the author's last name and the year of the taxon description;

Again, it all depends on the specific rules of a particular magazine.

In many journals, the presence or absence of a comma between the author and the year distinguishes an indication of the authorship of a taxon from a reference to a source.

Например: "One species (Th. lineolata Brunner-Wattenwyl, 1891 from “Alto Amazonas”; Brunner-Wattenwyl 1891) with unknown male is not included here in any subgenus of Theia." In the first case (with a comma) this is an indication of the author of the taxon, and in the second (without a comma) - the source.

This post was edited by Zlopastnyi Brandashmyg - 12/28/2015 20: 12

[Zlopastnyi Brandashmyg,28.12.2015 21:12]

Why?
I thought I'd explained it clearly.
Since the Code recommends that taxa names should be given WITHOUT abbreviations, at least when they are first mentioned in the publication (abbreviations are also specified for subsequent references), and the " & " sign is just such an abbreviation, its use can be considered undesirable. What is not understood here?

"et", also known as the ampersand, comes from quite respectable Latin. That its use is "bad form" is surprising.
Apparently, I communicate in an elite society.
In the "venerable" times of Cicero and Tiro, Latin was a living language, and obviously elements of calligraphy were acceptable in writing. Especially in the case of a shorthand recording of a private person, but not in the classic version adopted by us. No one now uses combinations like &c instead of etc. (et cetera) (and it was once!) or even more pretentious &al. вместо et al. (et alii, et aliae, et alia). But from a formal point of view, why not? By the way, in the original spelling, the ampersand, as a sign of the archaic shorthand of Tyrone, looked different than in the modern one. The current one is a typical "remake".
And although the ampersand is present on a computer keyboard, its use is very limited (mainly programming), while literate people try to avoid various signs and / or foreign inclusions, if their use is not dictated by real necessity. Latin, so Latin, Englishtky, so English, and so on. And then you can often find something like "Pupkin & Partners". What is this, if not an attempt to attract attention, to give yourself an aura of "elitism", exclusivity? This is bad form, and classical scientific Latin is no different.

The use cases of "et al." depend on the rules of a particular journal. In my humble opinion, the fewer abbreviations, the better - less confusion.
Here I agree on almost everything. I can only clarify that the abbreviation "et al." is acceptable when citing publications with a large number of co-authors, but NOT when mentioning taxa for the first time. In my opinion, when mentioned in publications, castrating the names of authors of taxa names can not only lead to confusion (which the articles of the Code are intended to exclude), but also simply unethical. As disrespect for the memory of our ancestors. Therefore, I always write, for example, Lepeletier de Saint Fargeau, and not something like Lepeletier, and even more so, Lep.

And you need to poke, because everything depends on the specific rules of a particular magazine.
What for? I am sure that colleagues who publish their work in periodical scientific publications face this problem regularly. And the rest of us just don't need it.

Again, it all depends on the specific rules of a particular magazine.
In many journals, the presence or absence of a comma between the author and the year distinguishes an indication of the authorship of a taxon from a reference to a source.

Например: "One species (Th. lineolata Brunner-Wattenwyl, 1891 from “Alto Amazonas”; Brunner-Wattenwyl 1891) with unknown male is not included here in any subgenus of Theia." In the first case (with a comma) this is an indication of the author of the taxon, and in the second (without a comma) - the source.

This is just another version of editorial "problems", also devoid of logic. In fact, the phrase given as an example may look different, and it is more logical and understandable:

"One species Th. lineolata Brunner-Wattenwyl, 1891 with unknown male is not included here in any subgenus of Theia."

And that's enough! And the reference to the publication, in this case “Alto Amazonas"; Brunner-Wattenwyl, 1891, is superfluous, and it could have been included in a footnote or moved to the list of references.