Knightia eocaena vs. Knightia humilis

[Sagebrush Steve]

I've finally gotten around to prepping some Green River fish I dug from Warfield Fossil Quarry about 10 years ago.  I've identified several of them as a specific Knightia species, but I'm not sure of the correct species name.  According to Paleontology of the Green River Formation, with a Review of the Fish Fauna," Geological Survey of Wyoming Bulletin 63, by Gary Glass, published in 1984, the correct identification is Knightia humilis, with K. eocaena being a junior homonym.  But according to A Revision of the Fossil Genus Knightia, With a Description of a New Genus from the Green River Formation, by Lance Grande and published 2 years earlier, K. humilis is the junior homonym and K. eocaena is the valid name for the species.  I've searched this forum and found both names used.  Can someone tell me what is currently considered the correct name?

 

(Sorry I've had to insert links rather than add the actual documents, they are both too large to attach here.)

[jpc]

Not sure without having the books in my hand.  Just so you know, the first book you mention is also by Lance Grande.  Gary Glass was the head of the Wyoming Geological Survey which published the book.  Grand also has a newer book published a few years ago which is also a great resource.  

[RJB]

  Hmmm,,,  been digging for the Green River fish over 20 years now and never thought about the difference.   Just always called em Knightia, and then kept on diggin and splittin. 

 

RB

[Sagebrush Steve]

12 hours ago, jpc said:

Just so you know, the first book you mention is also by Lance Grande.  

Of course you are right.  Maybe going forward I shouldn’t stay up late watching Arizona Diamondbacks night games before posing questions.

 

But now I’m more confused.  Humor me while I summarize the Knightia timeline as I now understand it (unfortunately I don’t have all the original papers, I am summarizing from what I learned from the last two):

 

1856: Leidy initially calls it Clupea Humilis

1877: Cope reclassifies it as a Diplomystus and calls it Diplomystus humilis

1907: Jordan reclassifies it as a Knightia and calls it Knightia eocaena

1980: Grande (in a paper I don’t have) states that Jordan was incorrect, K. eocaena is a junior homonym and the correct name should be Knightia humilis

1982: Grande publishes a paper, A Revision of the Fossil Genus Knightia, (linked above) in which he states:

“Grande (1980) was incorrect in stating that "[because Cope (1877, 1884) placed Leidy's (1856) name in Diplomystus] it was no longer a homonym." According to the Code of Zoological Nomenclature a junior primary homonym cannot be validated by transfer to another genus. Therefore, Knightia humilis is not the valid name…Knightia eocaena Jordan, 1907, is the valid name for this species.”

1984: Grande issues the second edition of Paleontology of the Green River Formation (linked above) in which he apparently forgets about his 1982 paper and states:

                “According to the rules of nomenclature, Jordan did not have the authority to change the species name…Therefore, the valid name of this species is Knightia humilis and K. eocaena is rejected as a junior synonym.”

 

Based on @jpc ‘s mention of a newer book by Lance Grande, I did an Amazon search and found his 2013 book, The Lost World of Fossil Lake: Snapshots from Deep Time.  I clicked on Amazon’s “Look inside the book” feature and lordy, it took me right to the page on Knightia, where he uses the term Knightia eocaena repeatedly and there is no sign of K. humilis (Lance, if you are reading this I promise to buy your book, or better yet, eliminate the middleman and just send you the $4 in royalties you would have earned if I had bought it).

 

My theory is that Grande’s 1984 second edition was not a complete update of his original 1980 edition and he didn’t update this part of his text.  So I think K. eocaena is valid.  Does anyone know Lance Grande to check for sure?

[doushantuo]

If you mean this one,I'll post the link

edit:grande

[doushantuo]

I wonder if Knightia is basically a species flock/"tribus",like the Lake Malawi cichlids

Fish speciation might be another kettle of

err

in lacustrine environments.

Knightia might be due some advanced morphometrical investigation.(Ah,for some fossil cytochrome "B")

The paleogeography of the Eocene of that area of the USA might be conducive to fairly rapid speciation,hybridization,etc,

There would be ,geologically speaking,rapid desiccation of environments,sudden panmixis diue to reflooding,salinity variations

***this just might be the worst case of "thinking aloud",ever,on this forum***

 

[Sagebrush Steve]

2 hours ago, doushantuo said:

I wonder if Knightia is basically a species flock/"tribus",like the Lake Malawi cichlids

Fish speciation might be another kettle of

err

in lacustrine environments.

Knightia might be due some advanced morphometrical investigation.(Ah,for some fossil cytochrome "B")

The paleogeography of the Eocene of that area of the USA might be conducive to fairly rapid speciation,hybridization,etc,

There would be ,geologically speaking,rapid desiccation of environments,sudden panmixis diue to reflooding,salinity variations

***this just might be the worst case of "thinking aloud",ever,on this forum***

 

Well, I'm not a paleontologist so I only understood about 2/3 of what you wrote , but I think I get it.  Are the species variations on the Galapagos Islands another example of what you are talking about?  In any event, it would be a good question to discuss in another post.  I was asking a simpler question: the same species (drawn from the same holotype) has been given different names over the years, what is currently considered the valid name?

 

And by the way, for you real paleontologists out there, maybe you can clear up another point of confusion for me.  In several of his papers Grande talks about E. eocaena and E. humilis being homonyms for the same species.  But homonyms are two words that sound the same but mean something different, for example "write" and "right."  Synonyms are two different words that mean the same thing.  So shouldn't E. eocaena and E. humilis be synonyms, not homonyms?

[doushantuo]

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/hosted-sites/iczn/code/index.jsp?article=57&nfv=true

[Sagebrush Steve]

1 hour ago, doushantuo said:

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/hosted-sites/iczn/code/index.jsp?article=57&nfv=true

Thanks, I knew somebody would have the answer.  Now I just need to study the information long enough to digest it.  Fortunately I don't have to worry about being tested on it as part of a Ph.D dissertation!

[doushantuo]

Actually you got me interested in the problem as well.

Only LG might be able to provide a definite answer, Steve, like you yourself already remarked.

Might be nice to know his current view of Eocene "clupeid" taxonomy

 

543618a.pdf

(accidental find, very serendipitous, Fortey on Grande's latest exploit)

[Sagebrush Steve]

On ‎6‎/‎10‎/‎2017 at 9:11 PM, doushantuo said:

Actually you got me interested in the problem as well.

Only LG might be able to provide a definite answer,Steve,like you yourself already remarked.

Might be nice to know his current view of Eocene "clupeid" taxonomy

 

543618a.pdf

(accidental find,very serendipitous,Fortey on Grande's latest exploit)

I have sent him an email and asked him to comment.  Will see what happens.

[doushantuo]

GREAT!

Love your proactive(hate that word)attitude

[jpc]

I was going to suggest sending Lance an email.  I have never noticed the things you are talking about, so I find this all pretty intriguing.  

[doushantuo]

clup

(GRANDE,1985,AMNH bulletin)

To be perfectly clear:i wouldn't have posted this if it didn't contain substantial information on KNIGHTIA

BTW:whopper of a piece ,this one;recommended

 

 

Some synonymy lists in there

 

BTW:dunno ,but i seem to have overlooked this one.

[FossilDudeCO]

@Sagebrush Steve let us know if you get a reply,if not I will be catching up with him in about 3 weeks and I would be happy to ask.

I am curious now as well!

[doushantuo]

"To the revision of the fossil clupeid,Knightia (Grande, 1982b) the following information can be added. The designated cotypes
oft"Knightia" brasiliensis Woodward,1939 (BMNH 25259-25266) were examined and they lack dorsal scutes, thus excluding
this species from the genus Knightia. Woodward(1939, p. 430) reported the presence of dorsal scutes in this species "supported by a
series of bones like the supports of the median fins" (probably on the basis of BMNH P25263). After examination here, these were
interpreted not as dorsal scutes, but rather as a series of small grooves made by the tops of
the predorsal bones.  Also, "Clupea" vectensis Newton, 1889, does not (as suggested in Grande, 1982b, p. 14) appear to be closely
related to Knightia, because one specimen(BMNH 39302) clearly shows the presence of two supramaxillary bones in this species.As suggested elsewhere

(Grande, 1982b) and above, the known geographic range of Knightia is western North America and China only. Also, a specimen

of an isolated braincase of Knightia eocaena Jordan, 1907(BMNH P 61170)was discovered which indicates that Knightia

had both prootic and pterotic bullae as most other Recent clupeids."
 

[doushantuo]

Jordan(1907)

[Sagebrush Steve]

On 6/13/2017 at 1:07 AM, doushantuo said:

Jordan(1907)

Outstanding, doushantuo, thanks for the posts!  I thought I was asking a simple question to discover the valid name for a Knightia species and have ended up learning a treasure trove of additional information!  Watch out, Grande, before you know it I will be challenging you for the title of Master of Green River Fish!

[Sagebrush Steve]

On 6/12/2017 at 9:28 PM, FossilDudeCO said:

@Sagebrush Steve let us know if you get a reply,if not I will be catching up with him in about 3 weeks and I would be happy to ask.

I am curious now as well!

Lance says he has posted the timeline of the nomenclature here but hasn't seen it come up yet.

[Sagebrush Steve]

10 minutes ago, Sagebrush Steve said:

Lance says he has posted the timeline of the nomenclature here but hasn't seen it come up yet.

Here is the latest from Lance:

 

My oh my! The Geological Survey of Wyoming web site has screwed up royally. The text pages they show there are of the first edition (1980) not the second (note the inside cover date). But their picture of the cover is from the 1984 edition. Incredible! Cant trust anyone anymore.

 

Find yourself a hard copy of the 1984 edition, let the other folks know that the Wyoming survey web site is screwed up, and I will let the survey know they have mixed it all up.

 

Thanks for bringing this to my attention!

 

Lance Grande

[Sagebrush Steve]

11 minutes ago, Sagebrush Steve said:

Here is the latest from Lance:

 

My oh my! The Geological Survey of Wyoming web site has screwed up royally. The text pages they show there are of the first edition (1980) not the second (note the inside cover date). But their picture of the cover is from the 1984 edition. Incredible! Cant trust anyone anymore.

 

Find yourself a hard copy of the 1984 edition, let the other folks know that the Wyoming survey web site is screwed up, and I will let the survey know they have mixed it all up.

 

Thanks for bringing this to my attention!

 

Lance Grande

And the latest from Lance:

 

Just spoke with them and they promised to take it down and fix. Thanks again for the heads up!

[Sagebrush Steve]

8 hours ago, Sagebrush Steve said:

Here is the latest from Lance:

 

My oh my! The Geological Survey of Wyoming web site has screwed up royally. The text pages they show there are of the first edition (1980) not the second (note the inside cover date). But their picture of the cover is from the 1984 edition. Incredible! Cant trust anyone anymore.

 

Find yourself a hard copy of the 1984 edition, let the other folks know that the Wyoming survey web site is screwed up, and I will let the survey know they have mixed it all up.

 

Thanks for bringing this to my attention!

 

Lance Grande

@jpc    @doushantuo  Does anyone happen to have a hard copy of the 1984 second edition of Grande's Paleontology of the Green River Formation, with a Review of the Fish Fauna," Geological Survey of Wyoming Bulletin 63?  Lance tells me I should get a hard copy of it because the Geological Survey of Wyoming screwed up and what they have posted online is the 1980 first edition with a cover saying it is the 1984 second edition.  I can buy a hard copy online but I don't want to do so and discover the hard copies were also printed incorrectly.  I'm hoping to find someone who has one and can confirm they were printed correctly before I buy.  If the second title page (page 3) has a 1980 date on it then we know it is incorrect.

[doushantuo]

Might be VERY hard to get*,unnless the Wyoming GS puts the correct edition up.

Website gave 404 error.

* i hope to be proven wrong,of course

[jpc]

the 404 might be cuz they are actively workingon it?  I just tried it, too.  I got 404. 

 

I have a few copies of both editions right here.  The internal title page says 1984.  I am sure the 1980 version is out of print.  You may have to call them to order the book.  I think it is about 17 bucks.  

[RLG]

The actual order of events are as follows:

 

First the terminology. Every species name is a binomial (i.e., it has two parts; Knightis eocaena for example). The first part is the genus name (Knightia for example) and the second part is the epithet name (eocaena for example).

 

1848 von Meyer names a new species of herring from Europe as Clupea humilis.

 

1856 Leidy names a fossil fish from the Green River Formation of Wyoming as Clupea humilis, not realizing that the name had already been used by von Meyer eight years earlier for a different species of fish.

 

1877 Cope realizes Leidy's mistake, and moves the Green River species into his genus Diplomystus, (whose first and type species is another Green River fish, Diplomystus dentatus). The resulting name for the Leidy Green River species is Diplomystus humilis.

 

1907 Jordan realizes that Cope's "Diplomystus humilis" species is not at all closely related to Diplomystus dentatus. In fact after further study, he realized that Cope's humilis species is more closely related to dozens of other herring genera than it is to Diplomystus, and therefore it did not belong in that genus. In addition, Jordan considered the epithet humilis to be invalid for the Green River species because it was originally part of a homonym. Therefore he created both a new species and a new genus name for the Wyoming fossil: Knightia eocaena.

 

1980 (not 1984) I used the name Knightia humilis, using Jordan's genus name but following Cope for the epithet "humilis", because I reasoned that Cope had saved the validity of the epithet for the Green River species by placing it in a different genus ("Diplomystus").

 

1982 I later became more familiar with the complex rules of naming (the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature"), and realized that you cannot save a primary homonym ("e.g., humilis for the Green River species in this case) simply by putting it in another genus. Jordan had been right in giving the species both a new genus and species name. The rules of nomenclature (naming) are strict and consistent, but they must be or we would have billions of inconsistent names making it impossible to make sense of the enormous biodiversity of this planet.

 

1984 In the second edition of my 1980 book cited above, I corrected the name to its final form, and that of Jordan 1907, Knightia eocaena. 

 

Bottom line: It takes a lot of work sometimes to get it right! Hope this was of some help!

 

The most recent complication, brought to my attention by this forum, was that the Wyoming Geological Survey mixed up my two editions (1980 with 1984) on their web site. In their PDF, they put the cover from the 1984 edition on the front of the 1980- edition of the book, leading to the confusion. This only occurs on that particular electronic PDF. All existing hard copies are correctly assembled. Someone on their web team created the mix up. That is one more reason why I am still a fan of hard copy books when it comes to doing research. The Wyoming Geological Survey assured me that they have taken down the problem PDF and will remedy the problem.

 

Cheers,

 

Lance Grande

 

 

References:

 

Grande, L. 1980. Paleontology of the Green River Formation, with a review of the fish fauna. First Edition. Geological Survey of Wyoming. 333 pages.

 

Grande, L. 1982. Revision of the fossil genus Knightia, with a description of a new genus from the Green River Formation. American Museum Novitates 2731: 1-22.

 

Grande, L. 1984. Paleontology of the Green River Formation, with a review of the fish fauna. Second Edition. Geological Survey of Wyoming. 333 pages.

 

The rest of the references (von Meyer, Leidy, Jordan) can all be found in the Grande, 1982 reference already listed.