The works on echinoids by Klein and Leske, the confusion concerning the authorship of Klein (1778), and the problem of citation of some species

Abstract

The three most important eighteenth century works on echinoids were by Klein (1734, 1778) and Leske (1778). Confusion about the authorship of Klein’s 1778 publication has led many subsequent, and most current, workers to attribute both 1778 works to Leske. It is clear that Leske himself recognised Klein as the author of the volume published first. Following the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN, 1999), the names for taxa in Klein (1734) are unavailable because they are pre-1758 (as are those in the French translation of 1754); the names in Klein (1778) are unavailable because of the lack of consistency in binominal nomenclature; only the names adopted by Leske (1778) are available for species and genera.