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587 MIERS, E. J., 1884. Crustacea. Report on the Zoological Collections made in the Indo-Pacific Ocean during the voyage of H.M.S. "Alert" 1881-2: 513-680, pls. 1-51. (London). MÜLLER,P., 1979. Decapoda (Crustacea) fauna a budapesti miocénböl. Föld. Közl., 108 (3): 272- 312. - -, 1984. Decapod Crustacea of the Badenian. Geologica Hungarica, (Palaeontologica) 42: 1-121. BERNHARDUS (= PAGURUS) ARMATUS DANA, 1851 (DECAPODA, ANOMURA): REPLACEMENT OF THE NEOTYPE BY A REDISCOVERED SYNTYPE BY CHRISTOPHER B. BOYKO and ALAN W. HARVEY Department of Invertebrates, American Museum of Natural History, Central Park West at 79th Street, New York, NY 10024, U.S.A. In 1851 and 1852, James Dana described a large number of new crustaceans collected by the United States Exploring Expedition. One of these was Bern- hardus armatus, a new species of northern Pacific hermit crab. Many of Dana's type specimens, including the type specimen(s) of B. armatus, were thought lost in the great Chicago fire of 1871 (see Evans, 1967), but we here report the dis- covery of a syntypic specimen in the collections of the Museum of Comparative Zoology (MCZ). Dana introduced Bernhardus (now Pagurus) armatu,s (type locality: "in freto 'Puget' Oregonensi" [= Puget Sound, Washington]) in a brief latinized descrip- tion (1851: 270), and later gave an expanded English description (1852: 442). No illustration of the species appeared until the publication of Dana's Atlas of Crustacea (1855, pl. 27 fig. 2a) and Dana never designated a holotype nor cited an exact number of specimens in his type series. Stimpson (1858: 248) syn- onymized the species with Eupaguru.s (now Pagurus) ochotensis (Brandt, 1851), but both Makarov (1938: 202) and McLaughlin (1974: 48) recognized the two species as distinct (see McLaughlin, 1974, for a more complete nomenclatural history). McLaughlin (1974: 57), citing the prior difficulties of separating P ar- matus and P ochotensis and believing the type(s) to have been lost or destroyed, designated a male specimen (United States National Museum [USNM] 143637 from off Fauntleroy Fry Dock, Puget Sound, Washington) as the neotype for Bernhardus armatus. 588 We recently located a male syntypic specimen of this species in the collections of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University (MCZ 1427), which we herein select as the lectotype. The lectotype is preserved in alcohol, is in excellent condition, is from the same general locality as the neotype, and could be Dana's (1855) figured specimen, as the lectotype is the same size and sex as the figured specimen and both are fully intact. Comparison of the MCZ and USNM specimens shows them to be conspecific. The two specimens are in equally good condition, although the former is smaller than the latter (7.2 mm vs. 19.6 mm shield length), and there seems no reason not to recognize Dana's specimen as the name-bearing type for the species; no change in the concept of the species would result from the replacement of the neotype by the lectotype. Article 75(h) of the current, third, edition of the International Code of Zo- ological Nomenclature (ICZN, 1985) states that "if, after the designation of a neotype, the holotype, lectotype, prior neotype (if any), or syntypes of the nom- inal species-group taxon is (are) found still to exist, the case is to be referred to the Commission to rule whether the neotype is or is not to be retained as the name-bearing type". Based on this, we petitioned the Commission to suppress the neotype of Bernhardus armatus in favor of the newly discovered lectotype. However, the Commission informed us that, although this petition would be announced in the December 1997 Bulletin of Nomenclatural Taxonomy (case # 3059), they would be unable to vote on the matter before the fourth edition of the Code comes into effect on 1 January, 1999 (P. K. Tubbs, in litt.). According to Article 75.8 of this new Code, a rediscovered original type will automatically replace a neotype; thus, petitions to the Commission will no longer be necessary, except to suppress the replacement of the neotype. This situation creates a problem in establishing the identity of the name-bearing type for Bernhardus armatus. The current edition of the Code prohibits anyone except the Commission from invalidating a neotype, but the Commission is no longer accepting new applications for invalidation, because the fourth edition of the Code will transfer this power from the Commission to researchers. However, implementation of the fourth edition is over a year away, so we are technically unable to resolve this issue until after 1 January, 1999. Nonetheless, because the neotype and lectotype are clearly conspecific, and because ongoing research involves this taxon, the most appropriate course of action (Tubbs, in litt.) is to follow the provisions of the forthcoming Code and replace the neotype (USNM 143637) with the rediscovered lectotype (MCZ 1427) as the name-bearing type of Bernhardus armatus Dana, 1851. We hope that the Commission will take appropriate measures to prevent similar "lapses in coverage" during the transi- tion between future editions of the Code. Still, we applaud this change in the .

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