Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2023 August 30

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August 30

How many genera are common to animals and plants?

How many genera are common to animals and plants? I ran into Borkhausenia that can be used for Scandosorbus intermedia and, more commonly, for one or two genera of moths. -- Carnby (talk) 04:32, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

From the article and section Binomial nomenclature#Problems:

"Because genus names are unique only within a nomenclature code, it is possible for two or more species to share the same genus name and even the same binomial if they occur in different kingdoms. At least 1,258 instances of genus name duplication occur (mainly between zoology and botany).^[23][24]"

{The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 51.194.81.165 (talk) 08:45, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

And since there are well over 14,049 accepted plant genera, that works out to about a 9% overlap for plants. Abductive (reasoning) 10:48, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Thank you.-- Carnby (talk) 13:22, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Was there ever a time the "official" (non-deprecated at the time) name of a taxon was ambiguous with another "official name" (non-deprecated synonym)? Besides species names. Those seem to be OK to duplicate. Probably multiple resplendans and Darwiniis and incarnatas and indicas. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 18:58, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

It's happened on a number of occasions. With no internet or even up-to-date printed lists of all species, numbers of new species being described in multiple journals rising faster than any one person could keep up with, and the specialisation of Botanists and Zoologists, it was inevitable. I can't think of any instances offhand, but I'll return to add any if I find references.

[Edited to add] For interest, here's a comprehensive list of duplicated genus names from another wiki: https://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_valid_homonyms.

And here's one binomial duplication: "Orestias elegans: this name denotes a species of fish (kingdom Animalia) as well as a species of orchid (kingdom Plantae)" from this source, which also lists six more, and from which I learn we have a Wikipedia Category https://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Species-level_hemihomonyms, which lists 14. (Sorry, I don't know how to do internal wikilinks to Categories.) {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 51.194.81.165 (talk) 00:35, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

There's apparently a Wikipedia article for this too (Homonym (biology)). Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 02:38, 31 August 2023 (UTC)