>>Hi folks,
>>
>>The genus Nardoa Gray 1842 was put to synonymy in the 19th century and popped up as a obviously available genus for sea stars (i guess it was Schmidt 1901 or so). What happend there? Can somebody lead me to the right direction where the change was made?

Such a "change" is not normally possible, unless the original author mistakenly described a starfish (sea star is an incorrect translitteration from Seestern as a reptile.

What *may* have happened is that Gray described a reptile genus as Nardoa, this fell into disuse, and Schmidt then described a genus of starfish with the same name, being unaware that the generic name had already been used for a totally different group of organisms (not all that unusual - see the Ermia/Zhaoermia story). If that is what happened (and I have NOT checked this, so let's not go around alarming the echinodermological community without checking our facts first!), then the starfish generic name Nardoa would be a junior homonym of Nardoa Gray 1842, and a different name would need to be found.

Check out the Zoological Record website for more info (sorry, don't have the URL at hand, a web search should soon reveal it.

Cheers,

Wolfgang
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