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Issue: Vol. 1893 No. 1: 6 Oct. 2008
Type: Correspondence
Published: 2008-10-06
DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.1893.1.4
Page range: 65–68
Abstract views: 38
PDF downloaded: 18

Comments on "Chersine Merrem, 1820 and Chersina Gray, 1831: a nomenclatural survey by Bour & Ohler, Zootaxa, 1752: 66–68"

Museum of Zoology (Museum für Tierkunde), Natural History State Collections Dresden, A. B. Meyer Building, D-01109 Dresden, Germany
Zoologisches Institut und Zoologisches Museum, Universität Hamburg, Martin-Luther-King-Platz 3, D-20146 Hamburg, Germany
Reptilia Chersine Chersina

Abstract

In a recent correspondence, Bour & Ohler (2008) readdress the question of whether or not Testudo hermanni Gmelin, 1789 is the type species of the genus-group names Chersine Merrem, 1820 and Medaestia Wussow, 1916 (Reptilia: Testudines: Testudinidae). The senior author, Roger Bour, co-authored the earlier description of a new genus-group name for T. hermanni (Eurotestudo Lapparent de Broin, Bour, Parham & Perälä, 2006), a name considered as an objective junior synonym of both Chersine and Medaestia by Fritz & Bininda-Emonds (2007) and Fritz & Havaš (2007), who argued that all three names are based on the same type species, T. hermanni. Bour & Ohler (2008) disputed this conclusion. In the present paper, we wish to clarify nomenclatural issues raised by Bour & Ohler (2008).

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