Urophonius iheringi Pocock 1893 (Bothriuridae)

Acosta, Luis E. & Fet, Victor, 2005, Nomenclatural notes in Scorpiones (Arachnida), Zootaxa 934 (1), pp. 1-12 : 3

Urophonius iheringi Pocock 1893 (Bothriuridae)

Urophonius jheringii Pocock 1893: 101 ; Acosta 1988: 28. Original spelling, deemed to be incorrect because of prevailing usage of the spelling iheringi .

Urophonius iheringi: Mello­Leitão 1931: 99 . Subsequent spelling, deemed to be correct because of more widespread use.

Pocock (1893) named Urophonius Jheringii honoring the German zoologist H. von Ihering, which he spelled 'Jhering'. Without resource of an external evidence, it should be assumed that Pocock believed that this was the correct spelling of the person. The species remained in the synonymy of Urophonius brachycentrus ( Thorell 1877a) for more than 30 years ( Lowe & Fet 2000), and in that period, when mentioned, the original spelling was used in some occasions ( Pocock 1898, Kraepelin 1899), while in others the initial letter was corrected to Iheringii ( Kraepelin 1894). Mello­Leitão (1931) revalidated the name, spelling it as iheringi (note the single i genitive instead of double ii). There is no statement that renders Kraepelin's (1894) or Mello­Leitão's (1931) actions as emendations, so they fit within the category of incorrect subsequent spellings. The usage of the name shows that authors widely adopted the corrected version of the name, iheringi . From 1931 to 1996 most authors followed Mello­Leitão. Lowe & Fet (2000) list 16 citations for iheringi , made by seven authors in that period, while only Acosta (1988) reinstated the original spelling. Since the spelling iheringi is in prevailing usage, it is to be maintained as the 'correct spelling' (Arts. 33.3.1 and 33.4). Lowe & Fet (2000) adopted iheringii as valid, but the prevaling usage also affects the modification of the genitive (correct ending with a single i).