Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature 49(4) December 1992 261 Case 2845 Taningia danae Joubin, 1931 (Mollusca, Cephalopoda): proposed precedence over Taningia perska (f^aef, 1923) Michael Vecchione National Marine Fisheries Service, Systematics Laboratory , National Museum of Natural History , Washington, D.C. 20560, U.S.A. Clyde F.E. Roper Department of Invertebrate Zoology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. 20560, U.S.A. Abstract. The purpose of this application is to conserve the usage of the specific name of Taningia danae Joubin, 1 93 1 , a cosmopolitan large deep-sea squid which is a major food of sperm whales. A small paralarval specimen originally named as Octopodoteuthis persica Naef, 1923 certainly belongs to Taningia and probably to the only recognized species, T. danae; the name persica never has been used as valid. 1 . The deep-sea squid Taningia danae was described by Joubin ( 1 93 1 , p. 181) based on a single small specimen (68 mm total length, about 40 mm mantle length) from the tropical eastern Atlantic. The species is almost cosmopolitan, and the total length may be over 2 m; most large specimens have been recovered from the stomachs of sperm whales (Roper & Vecchione, in press). While Joubin recognized the new species as belonging to the 'Octopodoteuthidae' (correctly octopoteuthididae, but usually spelled octopoteuthidae), he felt that the pair of large photophores on the tips of arms II were so distinctive as to warrant the erection of the new genus Taningia. The description and illustrations are quite detailed and comprehensive, and the holotype is deposited in the Zoologisk Museum, Copenhagen, where it has been examined by one ofus(C.F.E.R.). 2. Some specimens reported as Cucioteuthis unguiculata (Molina, 1782) are most probably Taningia danae. Molina (p. 199) described his Sepia unguiculata from a 'cuttlefish' taken off Chile in 1769 on Cook's first voyage, and based it on Cook's description and a preserved arm. This nominal species was made the type of a genus Cucioteuthus (later emended to Cucioteuthis) by Steenstrup ( 1 882, p. 1 53). All descrip-tions and illustrations of C. unguiculata lack any clear indication of the photophores at the arm tips which are characteristic of T. danae, and some reports may easily relate to large specimens of Octopoteuthis species. Specific and even generic identification of 'Cucioteuthis unguiculata cannot be made, and its names (which have not been used for many years) are best left as nomina dubia. 3. A nomenclatural problem exists from a name applied to a paralarval specimen. Chun (1910, p. 144) described a paralarva of 4.7 mm mantle length from the Gulf of Aden as the larva of an Octopodoteuthis ( = Octopoteuthis Riippell, 1 844) species. He
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