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Type: Article
Published: 2015-11-18
Page range: 280–286
Abstract views: 15
PDF downloaded: 1

Neotypification of the name Juglandites bergomensis, basionym of the fossil-species Juglans bergomensis (Juglans sect. Cardiocaryon, Juglandaceae)

Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Università di Torino, Via Valperga Caluso 35, I–10125 Torino, Italy
Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Istituto per la Dinamica dei Processi Ambientali, Piazza della Scienza 1, I–20126 Milano, Italy
Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Istituto di Geoscienze e Georisorse, Via Gradenigo 6, I–35131 Padova, Italy
Dipartimento di Paleontologia, Museo di Storia Naturale, Corso Venezia 55, I–20121 Milano, Italy
Naturalis Biodiversity Center, P.O. Box 9517, 2300 RA Leiden, Netherlands
Sezione di Geologia e Paleontologia, Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Verona, Lungadige Porta 16 Vittoria 9, I–37129 Verona, Italy
Italy Leffe nuts palaeontological collections Pleistocene General

Abstract

Juglans bergomensis is the name of a fossil-species belonging to Juglans sect. Cardiocaryon that is based on the basionym Juglandites bergomensis, whose type material, represented by a single fruit, is missing. However, the type locality can be indicated with certainty in the Early Pleistocene brown coal bearing sediments of Leffe, in northern Italy, which yielded several other fossil fruits with characters corresponding to the missing holotype. In the same site fruits of Juglandaceae of different fossil-species occurred. We select a specimen from a collection stored in Padua, with dimensions and sculpture most closely approaching those of the missing holotype, as neotype for the name Juglandites bergomensis, in order to fix the application of the name Juglans bergomensis. Even if the nuts of this species show “seemingly quite minor” differences from those of J. cinerea (smaller seeds, more shallow seed lobes, and generally more elongate shape), it is not convenient to use for these fossils, occurring in Eurasia, the name of the extant North American species. The use of the fossil-species name J. bergomensis, taking priority over J. tephrodes, permits to establish a clear relationship among several hundreds of Eurasian fossils assignable to sect. Cardiocaryon, and to highlight the morphological distinction from a few other fossil-species.