The lectotype for the Asian elephant, Elephas maximus Linnaeus, 1758 (Mammalia, Proboscidea) and comments on ‘primary, secondary and tertiary syntypes’ and ‘virtual lectotype designation’

Last November a group of colleagues and ourselves designated a lectotype for the Asian elephant, Elephas maximus Linnaeus, 1758, having used morphology and genetic and proteomic sequencing to confirm that Linnaeus’s syntypes included both Asian and African elephants. The article was published (Cappellini et al., 2013) online in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, together with eight items of Supplementary Information, and appeared on paper in the ZJLS in January 2014. The paper and SI items are available online at DOI:10.1111/zoj.12084. The lectotype is a very nearly complete mounted skeleton on display in the Natural History Museum of the University of Florence. John Ray described the specimen in 1673 and 1693 and Linnaeus cited Ray’s 1693 publication. The lectotype designation is available and valid. Dubois, Nemésio & Bour, however, have criticised our choice of selected specimen (published in Bionomina, June 2014; a preview is available online at http://mapress.com/bionomina/content.htm). We are concerned because they have demonstrated misunderstanding or ignorance of a number of aspects of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclatur

Zerovalent Fe, Co and Ni nanoparticle toxicity evaluated on SKOV-3 and U87 cell lines

ABSTRACT:We have considered nanoparticles (NPs) of Fe, Co and Ni, three transition metals sharing similar chemical properties. NP dissolution, conducted by radioactive tracer method and inductively coupled plasmamass spectrometry, indicated that NiNPs and FeNPs released in the medium a much smaller amount of ions than that released by Co NPs. The two considered methodological approaches, however, gave comparable but not identical results. All NPs are readily internalized by the cells, but their quantity inside the cells is less than 5%. Cytotoxicity and gene expression experimentswere performed on SKOV-3 and U87 cells. In both cell lines, CoNPs and NiNPs were definitely more toxic than FeNPs. Real-time polymerase chain reaction experiments aimed to evaluatemodifications of the expression of genes involved in the cellular stress response (HSP70, MT2A), or susceptible to metal exposure (SDHB1 and MLL), or involved in specific cellular processes (caspase3, IQSEC1 and VMP1), gave different response patterns in the two cell lines. HSP70, for example, was highly upregulated by CoNPs and NiNPs, but only in SKOV-3 cell lines. Overall, this work underlines the difficulties in predicting NP toxicological properties based only on their chemical characteristics. We, consequently, think that, at this stage of our knowledge, biological effects induced by metal-based NPs should be examined on a case-by-case basis following studies on different in vitro models. Moreover, with the only exception of U87 exposed to Ni, our results suggest thatmetallic NPs have caused, on gene expression, similar effects to those caused by their cor- Q2 responding ions

Resolution of the type material of the Asian elephant, Elephas maximus Linnaeus, 1758 (Proboscidea, Elephantidae)

The understanding of Earth’s biodiversity depends critically on the accurate identification and nomenclature of species. Many species were described centuries ago, and in a surprising number of cases their nomenclature or type material remain unclear or inconsistent. A prime example is provided by Elephas maximus, one of the most iconic and well-known mammalian species, described and named by Linnaeus (1758) and today designating the Asian elephant. We used morphological, ancient DNA (aDNA), and high-throughput ancient proteomic analyses to demonstrate that a widely discussed syntype specimen of E. maximus, a complete foetus preserved in ethanol, is actually an African elephant, genus Loxodonta. We further discovered that an additional E. maximus syntype, mentioned in a description by John Ray (1693) cited by Linnaeus, has been preserved as an almost complete skeleton at the Natural History Museum of the University of Florence. Having confirmed its identity as an Asian elephant through both morphological and ancient DNA analyses, we designate this specimen as the lectotype of E. maximus