At 13.01 15/10/2003 GMT, you wrote:
>Andrew, Harry, or...
>If a valid name is reduced to a SUBJECTIVE junior synonym in a proper
publication, is it no longer a valid name?  Does it need to have a formal
re-review, placing it back as a valid species before it can be considered
valid?


Taxonomy is so often and mostly a matter of "subjective opinion"....
Yes, when the synonymy is subjective (that is when the types of two taxa
are different specimens but a specialist consider them as conspecific*) the
matter is demanded to the specialists and the scientific community. After
the synonymy is proposed the community will decide to accept it or not: or
even will split in two parts that will discuss about the correctness of the
synonymy. Obviously the synonymy can be considered an error by the other
specialists, and then rejected. The community will know it when it will be
published (and possibly discussde) somewhere. But there is no explicit rule
about it.

* Objective synonymy is when two taxa are based upon the same specimens
(or two genera are based upon the same species, or two families are based
upon the same genus)
=========================================================
Marco Oliverio - Evolutionary Biology PhD
Research Scientist

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