Posted by:
WW
at Sun Dec 14 04:46:17 2003 [ Report Abuse ] [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by WW ]
First:
- singular: genus
- plural: genera
Second:
When you read descriptions for genera in field guides, web pages or herpetoculture books, then the characters chosen are simply a few conspicuous characters that more or less describe or help identify the genus (and in many cases, particularly private web pages, the accuracy of the information leaves a lot to be desired anyway). If field guides or regional books, this will be in relation to other animals found in the same area. For instance, an Aussie book will attempt to differentiate an Aussie genus from another Aussie genus, but not an Aussie genus from an Afdrican genus.
Second, genera are primarily defined on the basis of monophyly, evidenced from analysis of various characters, not on the basis of external similarity. The characters that identify various monophyletic groups are not necessarily characters that are easily used for field identification (e.g., cranial bones etc.)
Check out the following publication for more detail:
WÜSTER, W., B. BUSH, J.S. KEOGH, M. O'SHEA & R. SHINE (2001) Taxonomic contributions in the "amateur" literature: comments on recent descriptions ofnew genera and species by Raymond Hoser. Litteratura Serpentium, 21(3): 67-79, 86-91.
You can download it at the link below.
Cheers,
Wolfgang
WW Publicatrions page
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