Synonymy and nomenclatural history of the Common or Viviparous Lizard, by this time: Zootoca vivipara (Lichtenstein, 1823)

摘要

We carefully reread and translated the Latin account by J.F. von Jacquin (1787) on his description of a viviparous lizard ("Lacerta vivipara") in the Austrian Alps near Vienna. It turned out that - in contrast to common usage -this account cannot be regarded as the original description and scientific denomination of the taxon Zootoca (formerly Lacerta) vivipara. It is apparent that v. Jacquin did not at all intend to describe a new species, but just wanted to point on his extraordinary observation that the lizard observed by him gave birth to young instead of laying eggs (Latin: Lacerta vivipara = viviparous lizard). For securing nomenclatural stability of this well-known and widely distributed species, we had to search for the next, subsequent author using v. Jacquin's name in the sense of a taxonomic denomination. According to our extensive literature review, it was Lichtenstein (1823) who first used "Lacerta vivipara" as a species name (although he thought it to be a synonym of Lacerta muralis).In accordance with and to meet the standards of Article 11 of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN 1999), the common lizard has now to be named Lacerta vivipara Lichtenstein, 1823, or, according to current concepts, Zootoca vivipara (Lichtenstein, 1823).Cocteau (1832) was the only earlier author who recognized that von Jacquin had no intention of describing a new species. He therefore named his lizard from Schneeberg / Austria "Lacerta de Jacquin" which has to be regarded as a replacement name (at leastwith respect to Lacerta vivipara Lichtenstein). Subsequently, Dumeril & Bibron (1839) discussed the biological details of "Lacerta vivipara" given by Cocteau (1832), but omitted his nomenclatural Undings completely, like all subsequent authors. Since then the common lizard was usually named "Lacerta vivipara de Jacquin. 1787". whereupon some older names before Lichtenstein's (1823) action were relegated into its synonymy.The viviparous lizard was for a long time the hidden member of a voluminous collective species since early Linnean times (named Lacerta agilis by Linnaeus, 1758, or Lacertus cinereus by Lacepede, 1788 - and comprising at least additionally Lacerta agilisLinnaeus, 1768, Lacerta viridis Laurenti, 1768, and Podarcis muralis (Laurenti. 176S). in their current sense. On the other hand Wolf in Sturm (1805) and Mikan in Sturm (1805) had split the presenl-day Zootocu vivipara into three species later on .The discrepancy between several simultaneous lumping and splitting trends immensely complicated the development of nomenclature and systematics - not only in Zootoca vivipara (see Schmidtler. 2010) - up to the middle of the 19th century.In this paper, we provide a detailed list of the names erected and described in connection with the common li/ard and discuss and evaluate their nomenclatural availability. Some of the old nomina were rediscovered here and are rather curious examples from early post-Linnean times.