Gastropteron rubrum not G. meckeli

November 2, 2001
From: Michael Schroedl & Erwin Koehler

Dear Bill,
This comment is with regard to your discussion on the valid name of the Mediterranean species of Gastropteron. I hope you will be pleased to hear that finally we got access to Kosse's Latin doctoral thesis (1813) on microfiches. He compared the morphology and anatomy of "pteropod" genera known at that time, introducing the genus name Gastropteron. Fischer (1910) was correct in saying that Kosse (1813) did not use any species names in this study. Thus, there is no valid name "Gastropteron meckeli Kosse, 1813" either. This confirms your view (Rudman - Sea Slug Forum, September 6, 2001), that the Mediterranean species should be called Gastropteron rubrum (Rafinesque, 1814).

The reason for some authors having suspected "Gastropteron meckeli Kosse, 1813" to be an available name may be that, at the beginning of a chapter comparing the head of "pteropods" (page 11), Kosse (1813) referred to his drawings of Gastropteron by footnotes. In the same chapter Kosse mentioned "…Doridiorum Meckelii…", which is just a normal Latin genitive plural for "Doridium" (Doridium Meckel, 1809 = Aglaja) and genitive singular for "Meckel". From the context this is just part of a comparative description but by no means a somewhat "hidden" proposal for a species name for Gastropteron.

By the way, I was always hating Latin and I still do.
Best regards,
Michael and Erwin

schroedl@zi.biologie.uni-muenchen.de

Schroedl, M., 2001 (Nov 2) Gastropteron rubrum not G. meckeli. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/5605

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