Another Nomenclature Question

[cabintom]

I'm trying to figure out whether the following species is properly:
Sevenia occidentalium (Mabille, 1876)
OR
Sallya occidentalium (Mabille, 1876)



Mark Williams, in his Afrotropical Butterflies online encyclopedia, records the following:

"Genus Sevenia Koçak, 1996
Centre for Entomological Studies Miscellaneous Papers 27-28: 13 (10-16).
Replacement name for Crenis Boisduval, 1833 nec Hübner, 1821, and Sallya Hemming, 1964 nec Yochelson, 1956 (Mollusca).
= Asterope auctt., nec Hübner, [1819]. Verzeichniss bekannter Schmettlinge 432 + 72.
= Crenis Boisduval, 1833. Nouvelles Annales du Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris 2: 196 (149-270). Type-species: Crenis madagascariensis Boisduval, by monotypy. Invalid; junior homonym of Crenis Hübner, 1821.
= Sallya Hemming, 1964. Annotationes lepidopterologicae (Part 4): 139 (139-140). Replacement name for Crenis Boisduval.

Ackery et al. (1995: 359) follow Jenkins 1990 (Bulletin of the Allyn Museum No. 131: 177 pp.) in treating Sallya [= Sevenia] as generically distinct; the more usual convention has been to regard Sallya as a subgenus of the otherwise New World genus Eunica Hübner. Lees et al. (2003) treat Sevenia as a subgenus of Eunica but Larsen (2005a) treats it as a genus distinct from Eunica.
An Afrotropical genus containing 18 species."

While sites like funet (and other places) still consider Sallya to be the valid genus, and Sevenia as a synonym.


I guess, what it comes down to is that I don't understand the reasoning (recorded by M. Williams) for why Sevenia may have replaced Sallya... maybe you can help decipher this for me?

Thanks!
Tom

[Adam Cotton]

Koçak replaced the name Sallya Hemming (1964), which itself is a replacement name for Crenis Boisduval (1833), with Sevenia because both names are junior homonyms and thus unavailable. Sallya Yochelson (1956) is a mollusc, and Crenis Hübner, 1821 is a Nymphalid genus group name, although may not currently be treated as a valid genus.

Williams accepts Sevenia Koçak, 1996 as the valid genus name, and discusses the treatment of Sallya by Ackery et al. (1995), which was published before Koçak replaced the name with Sevenia.

The only reason Sevenia Koçak, 1996 could be regarded as a junior synonym of Sallya Hemming (1964) would be if Koçak incorrectly treated Sallya as a junior homonym. Koçak does indeed sometimes make those sort of errors, but I guess it is unlikely in this case. Usually it is based on misinterpretation of very close names that are not actually the same (eg. phegeus and phegea - both of these are nouns, not adjectives).

Adam.

[cabintom]

Thanks for translating for me Adam!