The dangers of inadequate literature search to nomenclatural stability: the case of the nomina Hyla quoyi Bory de Saint-Vincent, 1828 and Hyla prasina Burmeister, 1856 (Amphibia: Anura)

Abstract

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The Hyla quoyi–Hyla prasina case (Amphibia, Anura), with comments on bibliographic and taxonomic databases and on Article 23.9 of the Code

“…Given the rather wide use of this nomen documented by these authors, we agree this would be strange and we think that their action should be validated and that the nomen Boana prasina should be maintained for this species. This result could indeed be obtained by 'general consensus' among authors, but we are conscious that, if at least one author disagrees with this 'lax' interpretation, the only possibility to validate prasina will be through an action of the Commission under its plenary power, as suggested by Costa & Santana (2018). Dubois A.…”

“…A search on 1 July 2018 with the same timeframe and keywords led to 9 references (removing duplicate references where both combinations were mentioned) which is slightly less than 16 months earlier. Costa & Santana (2018) reported having found 13 references on the Web of Science, including one meeting abstract. The results of these three searches are slightly different but in the three cases the number of references is far below the threshold number of 25 references.…”

“…But Kolenc & Baldo (2018: 590) wrote: "Usage instances for Hyla quoyi as a valid name after 1899 within the scope of Article 23.9.1: none", and Costa & Santana (2018) mentioned the recent use of this nomen as valid only in Ohler & Dubois 2018, but none of these authors noted its use in Dubois (2017b), although it was mentioned in the latter work. This fact, as well as the different numbers of references to the use of Hyla prasina listed by Kolenc & Baldo (2018) and by Costa & Santana (2018), show that, despite the existence of various bibliographic databases, no bibliographic search of references can be complete.…”