Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature 121 AMY DA FITZINGER, 1843 (REPTILIA, TESTUDINES) : PROPOSED SUPPRESSION UNDER THE PLENARY POWERS. Z.N.(S.) 229 By Hobart M. Smith {Department of Zoology and Museum of Natural History, University of Illinois, Urhana, Illinois) and Philip W. Smith {Natural History Survey, Urhana) The proper generic name for the Three-clawed Softshell turtles of the Americas and of the Eastern Hemisphere has been debated for 50 or 60 years, the chief competitors being Amyda and Trionyx. A related Indian genus of Hinged Softshells has similarly been Icnown since 1931 sometimes as Trionyx, sometimes Lissemys. A third genus of Malayan softshells, commonly known by the generic name Dogania, is also involved in the confusion of names. An excellent history of the nomenclatural confusion is given by Stejneger, one of the principal participants (1944, Bull. Mus. comp. Zool. 94 : 5-8). His conclusions were not universally accepted, however, and a number of dissenting and confirmatory discussions followed. Conant and Goin (1948, Occ. Papers, Mus. Zool. Univ. Michigan, 510 : 11-16) re-assayed the problem and submitted the case to the Commission first in 1946. Correspondence wdth Mr. Francis Hemming, then Secretary of the Commission, on seemingly endless ramifications of the case gradually flagged, and the Conant-Goin proposal accordingly was never completed to the satisfaction of the editors of the Bidletin of Zoological Nomenclature. In 1958, Dr. Robert Webb, then at the University of Kansas and engaged in a study of American softshells, requested the Committee on Nomenclature, of which the senior author was then chairman, of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists, to review the case. The Conant-Goin proposal was then exhumed but again the editorial task proved overwhelming until, in recent months, it became apparent that appearance of the revised (1961) Code would be an essential prelude to a satisfactory presentation of the case. Since much of the original Conant-Goin proposal is now superseded, Drs. Conant, Goin and Webb, and the Assistant Secretary to the International Commission, Dr. W. E. China, have recommended the formulation of a new proposal. I am indebted to all these gentlemen, and to IMr. Richard V. Melville, for their assistance with seemingly controversial points and in many other ways. 1. The earliest usage of Amyda, as pointed out by Conant and Goin (1948 : 12) occiu-s in Geoflfroy St. HUaire, July 1809 {Nouv. Bull. Sci. Philom. Paris 22 : 363) who includes the name in the sjTionymy of Triojiyx javanicus, in the combination "Amyda Javanicus, par. M. Schweigger, dans un manuscrit communique a ITnstitut ". Geoffroy republished the same information in August of 1809 {Ann. Mus. Hist. Nat. Paris 14 : 15). The 1961 Code explicitly (Art. lid) excludes from availabihty any name first published as a synonym, as of that date ; therefore only by use of the Bull. zool. Nomencl., Vol. 20, Part 2. AprU, 1963.
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