The Confused Nomenclature of Nycteribia vespertilionis and Spinturnix vespertilionis

Linnaeus, in 1758, named a Pediculus vespertilionis which has been (and still is) interpreted as an arachnoid by some authors and as a pupipara by others. The first difficulty seems to lie in the fact that authors have not examined the original (1728 ) paper on which Linnaeus based the name; second, that a new genus was based on a misdetermined type species; and third, that other complications arise because various authors have not always followed the rules of nomenclature consistently.Taken in detail, this case represents a classical instance of the so-called "transfer cases", namely, instances in which a generic name is transferred to a group which does not contain the species originally named or used as type. Some instances (as in Nycteribia) this is because authors cites an erroneously determined species as type - a class of cases upon the nomenclature solution of which zoologists are not agreed. The object of this paper is to present the history of the subject, with a discussion of the confusion, to the International Commission on Zoological nomenclature in order that an opinion be rendered which will clear up the existing confusion in the present case, and to inhibit it in the future.