Monday, August 26, 2013

Bat names, ligatures, and fonts

Notes on fonts in trying decipher some bat names (and sort out some synonyms). It can be difficult to tell "œ" (o + e) from "æ" (a + e) in some texts. For example, BHL page 35549499 has "Chœrephon":

Chœrephon

Chœrephon


Here is the name on BHL 37695497 (Catalogue of the Chiroptera in the collection of the British Museum):

Chærephon

Chærephon


This genus of bats is named for "Χαιρεφῶν, Aristophanes, Aves, 1296, 1564." according to Dobson 1874 (On the Asiatic species of Molossi), but is regarded as having been amended by Dobson 1878 to Chærephon. It took some time squinting at the BHL scan to see that Dobson 1878 and Dobson 1874 did actually write the name differently. Why does this matter? Well, the GBIF classification has both "Choerephon" and "Chaerephon" in its list of bat genera in the family Molossidae, and it can have one or other, but not both.