IRMNG was wrong? Kansastega McDavid & Hooks is an available name!
Skye McDavid, April 4, 2024
Microstega, a genus of Protostegid sea turtles formerly assigned to Protostega and Archelon, was named by Ed Hooks in 1998. Unfortunately, this name was preoccupied by a moth. After realizing this, I reached out to him, and we proposed the name Kansastega as a replacement. (McDavid & Hooks 2023) Now, IRMNG is an online database of zoological nomenclature that sometimes gets things right that lots of other people get wrong, and I've cited it for specifically that reason. (McDavid & Perkins 2023)
Yet, when I look up Kansastega on IRMNG, I see this:
IRMNG claims that the name is unavailable because it was introduced in an unregistered electronic publication. This isn't true. First of all, the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, in which Kansastega was published has both print and online versions. I have a bunch of the volumes on my shelf, including the one in which the name Kansastega appears. Since there is a print version of the paper, registration in ZooBank is not required.
In addition to that, the paper is registered in ZooBank, and the PDF version includes the ZooBank registration.
In short, Kansastega is available from McDavid & Hooks, 2023.
That being said, the HTML version of the article does not have the ZooBank link, which I suspect the IRMNG contributor took to mean there was no ZooBank registration. However, the ICZN is clear that the HTML version is irrelevant and the PDF version is what matters, so the HTML version is just an additional convenience.
(As a last side note, IRMNG and the Wayback Machine show April 5 rather than April 4 as a date because they are using UTC time and my time zone is UTC-4.)
References
ICZN (1999). International Code of Zoological Nomenclature. (4th ed.) International Trust For Zoological Nomenclature.
IRMNG (2023). Kansastega McDavid & Hooks, 2023 †. Accessed at: https://irmng.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id;=11933377 on 2024-04-05 [archived]
McDavid SN & Hooks GE (2023). Kansastega, nom. nov., a replacement name for Microstega Hooks, preoccupied by Meyrick. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 43(1) e2252648 doi: 10.1080/02724634.2023.2252648 [archived or PDF]
McDavid SN & Perkins J (2023) The authorship of Astrodon (Dinosauria, Sauropoda): Leidy, 1865, not Johnston, 1859. The Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature 80(1):109-111 doi: 10.21805/bzn.v80.a031 [PDF]