Sicus Fabricius, 1798: 547

Michelsen, Verner & O’Hara, James E., 2014, A review of genus-group names in Diptera (Insecta) that J. C. Fabricius “ borrowed ” from other dipterists and proposed as new in his systematic works from 1775 to 1805, Zootaxa 3873 (1), pp. 73-81 : 76

Sicus Fabricius, 1798: 547 , 554.

Type species: Musca ferruginea Scopoli, 1763 , as a consequence of a ruling by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (1997: 133). By the same ruling, Sicus Fabricius, 1798 was placed on the Official Index of Rejected and Invalid Generic Names in Zoology and declared a junior objective synonym of Coenomyia Latreille, 1797 (Xylophagidae) . Junior homonym of Sicus Scopoli, 1763 and Sicus Latreille, 1797 .

Remarks. The first usage of the name Sicus was by Scopoli (1763) for species of Conopidae , the second usage was by Latreille (1797) for a species of Hybotidae , and the third usage was by Fabricius (1798) for five nominal species of Xylophagidae . These five nominal species of Sicus Fabricius are all, with varying confidence, regarded as junior synonyms of one variable species, Coenomyia ferruginea ( Scopoli, 1763) . Although one of Fabricius’s species was named Sicus ferruginea and has subsequently been established as a synonym of Musca ferruginea Scopoli, 1763 , there was no indication by Fabricius that his ferruginea was used in the sense of ferruginea Scopoli. We contend that the Fabricius name was a separate proposal and should have been interpreted by subsequent authors as ferruginea Fabricius, 1798 , not as ferruginea Scopoli, 1763 . Under such an interpretation, Sabrosky (1961: 228) could not have designated Musca ferruginea Scopoli as the type species of Sicus Fabricius. We will not elaborate on the nomenclatural ramifications this would have had on the type species of Coenomyia Latreille, 1797 and Sicus Fabricius, 1798 because the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (1997: 133) ruled that Sicus Fabricius, 1798 is a junior objective synonym of Coenomyia Latreille, 1797 , thereby effectively upholding the type species of Sicus Fabricius as Musca ferruginea Scopoli, 1763 . The name Sicus Fabricius, 1798 was placed on the Official Index of Rejected and Invalid Generic Names in Zoology by the same ruling and according to Code Article 80.7.1: “A work, name or nomenclatural act entered in an Official Index has the status attributed to it in the relevant ruling(s).”