中国水生蜥与潜龙名称合法性之争

Sinohydrosaurus and Hyphalosaurus:which is the valid name?

热河生物群中有一种水生爬行动物,以长颈、长尾、小头颅为主要特征。在研究中,不同学者使用了不同的学名,构成了同物异名。简要回顾它的研究历史,主要讨论究竟哪一个学名是合法有效名称。根据国际动物学命名法规,认为中国水生蜥(Sinohydrosaurus)命名在先,是合法有效名称,而潜龙(Hyphalosaurus)为无效名称,应当废弃。

A special aquatic diapsid group （Reptilia） was abundantly unearthed from Lower Cretaceous in western Liaoning, which was characterized by developing a long neck, a long tail and a small skull. The first specimen of the aquatic reptile was found by a farmer in 1998. The part （BPV 398） was deposited in Beijiug Natural History Museum, and the counterpart （V11705） was deposited in Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Li Jian-jun et al. and Gao Ke-qin et al. respectively studied the two parts and gave two different names in 1999, Hyphalosaurus and Sinohydrosaurus. It was very clear that both names were thus objective synonyms of one another. The anthors briefly introduced the research history of the special diapsid group and made a discussion on the selection of a valid name for this taxon. According to ICZN and Law of Priority, Sinohydrosaurus was thus se- lected to serve as the name for this taxon because the paper for Li et al （1999） was apparently published well before the paper for Gao et al （1999）.