Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature 235 PURPURA, OCENEBRA, AND MURICANTHUS (GASTROPODA): REQUEST FOR CLARIFICATION OF STATUS. Z.N.(S.) 1621 By A. Myra Keen {Stanford University, California, U.S.A.) Several questions have arisen in my revision of the gastropod superfamily Muricacea for the " Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology " that seem to require decision by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. Three of these are here grouped as a single petition because the problems involved are somewhat related and are relatively straightforward. I. Status of Purpura While I was preparing the preliminary draft of this petition, a comment by Drs. J. Chester Bradley and Katherine V. W. Palmer was published {Bull. zool. Nomencl. 20 : 251) relative to Z.N.(S.) 1088, on Ceratostoma. I have therefore rephrased my statements so as to discuss the requests that they made to the Commission. The " Purple-shells " of the ancients, so often mentioned by authors, were any of several mollusks from which a colorfast dye could be obtained, mainly a species of the family Muricidae, Murex trunculus Linnaeus, 1758, from the eastern Mediterranean, a form not included acceptably in the nominal genus Purpura until late in the eighteenth century, and then only fleetingly. Linnaeus did not recognize Purpura as a genus but placed the species under Murex. In the ensuing half-century, from 1 758 to 1799, the name Purpura was used in several different senses, the earliest appearances (Martini and Chemnitz, 1777; Martyn, 1784; and Meuschen, 1787) being in works now rejected as non-binominal. Bradley and Palmer conclude that (and in this I agree) the introduction of the name by Bruguiere, 1789, was not in such a way as to fix the type-species; the proposal was, at best, of a genus without named species. They would invoke subsequent monotypy under Article 69a (ii) (2) of the Code, the type being fixed by Lamarck, 1799, as Buccinum persicuni Linnaeus, 1758. This, however, overlooks a very different usage of the generic name by Bruguiere himself in 1792, when he proposed in an entirely acceptable manner the nominal species Purpura tubifer {J. Hist, nat., Paris, 1 : 28, pi. 2, figs. 3-4). This Eocene fossil was refigured by Montfort m 1810 and made the type-species of the new genus Typhis. Hence, the device of subsequent monotypy would not preserve Purpura in its accustomed sense, and it would jeopardize a well-known and uncontroversial name. Typhis. I conclude, therefore, that action by the Commission, under the plenary powers, is required. Two alternatives are possible: (a) Fixation of the type-species of Purpura Bruguiere. 1 789, arbitrarily as Buccinum persicum Linnaeus, 1758, in accordance with current practice. (b) Suppression of the name Purpura on the ground that its use is and has been equivocal. In support of the latter alternative the following arguments may be advanced : (i) During the last half of the eighteenth century the name was used in at least five different senses, generically, in what would now be regarded as two Bull. zool. Nomencl., Vol. 21, Part 3. August 1964.
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