Quote:
Originally Posted by frostfire
Thanks Arp and Paul! Just out of interest, why did they decide to rename and regroup them?
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There are two things there.
Nomenclature: Re-namings occur when it is dicovered that an organism was given a different name before the commonly used name; when an organism has been found to have been given two or more names; when there has been a misspelling and several other reasons.
NOMENCLATURE - CONTINUED explains a fairly complex system as simply as is possible - and asks you some questions at the end!
Systematics: the aim is that the closest related species should be in the same genus; the closest related genera in the same family &c.. So occasionally taxonomists decide that two separate genera are really the same one (an then
lump the two genera into one) or decide that two members of a genus are not closely related and
split the genera.
Sometimes these changes are unavoidable but sometimes it seems that some experts are excessively keen on splitting. It's interesting to compare the numbers of beetle species per genus with the number of butterflies. In Europe we have some beetle genera with forty, fifty or more species whereas almost every butterfly species has its own genus only ..... are butterflies more evolutionary unstable than beetles?
