Bigeneric nomina: An historical and evolutionary perspective

Abstract

It is suggested that the addition of bigeneric or bispecific nomina to designate fossils which are intermediate between two chronogenera or chronospecies is inadvisable, because the use of either of these categories to describe cases involving a single phyletic line, consisting of a continuous chain of time-sequential populations, misrepresents the nature of the evolutionary processes involved; and that in such cases fossils might best be referred to by specimen numbers.