I think that most specialists do use the name TUNICATA, regarding its
precedence. Unfortunately, many students and colleagues come to us using
UROCHORDATA instead of Tunicata, because most textbooks on invertebrate
zoology still use that name. Even the last edition of Brusca & Brusca¹s
Invertebrates (2003) brings the title ³The Urochordates (Tunicates)² for the
part describing the tunicates. As many of the zoology teachers are not aware
of the precedence of the name Tunicata, this mistake is propagated.

_____________________________________
Tito M. C. Lotufo
Universidade Federal do Ceara - Brasil
Departamento de Engenharia de Pesca
Tel: (85) 288-9726 FAX: (85) 287-6940
E-mail: [log in to unmask]


on 05.06.03 02:02, Patricia Mather at [log in to unmask] wrote:

> Dear list members,
> Quite correctly we are all subscribers to a tunicate list- not a urochordate
> list.  If you are uncertain about this the following notes could help:
> 
> The correct name is TUNICATA Lamarck, 1816:  The name was used by Lamarck to
> accommodate the related groups of organisms, ascidians, Pyrosoma and salps.
> Subsequently Milne Edwards (1843) added the Bryozoa to  the Tunicata in the
> Class Molluscoidea; then Hancock (1850) added Brachiopoda to the Bryozoa and
> Tunicata in the Molluscoidea; and finally Huxley (1851) recognised the
> Tunicata (ascidians, salps, doliolids and Appendicularia) as a distinct
> phylogenetic entity separate from Mollusca, Bryozoa and Brachiopoda. This
> was later supported by Bronn (1862).  Kowalewsky (1866) recognised a
> chordate affinity in the notochord -like cells in the larval tail and the
> group Tunicata was regarded as a subphylum of the Chordata
> 
> The name Urochordata was not used until  Balfour (1881), quite
> un-necessarily, created it as a replacement name for Tunicata, presumably to
> emphasise the chordate affinity. A perfectly good name already existed for a
> well defined entity and a replacement name was not required.  The name
> Urochordata is a junior synonym of the name Tunicata . The use of the junior
> synonym for the phylogenetic entity originally established by Lamarck in
> 1816 is inappropriate. Balfour also unnecessarily introduced the names
> Perennichordata (for Appendicularia with a tail through life) and
> Caducichordata (Thaliacea, which occasionally have a tailed larva, and
> Ascidiacea which always do).  There is  no justification for the erection of
> replacement names based on a single character  subjectively judged to be of
> greater significance than others.  This practice causes ambiguity and
> certainly does not lead to the stability in nomenclature that is desirable.
> 
> The name Tunicata is almost universally used to refer to this group of
> organisms in the major monographic works on any of its contained Classes,
> e.g  Alder (1863), Herdman ( 1882,1886 etc), Alder and Hancock (1905-12),
> Harants and Vernieres (1933), Brien (1948), Van Name (1945),  Berrill
> (1950), van Soest (1970s-1990s), Fenaux (1993), Bone (1998) and many others.
> 
> I hope this helps- see Fenaux(1993) and Brien (1948) for further
> clarification.
> 
> Patricia Kott
>