Status of Kessleria Bogdanov 1882 (Actinopterygii: Acipenseridae), with comments on the original description

Abstract

Kessleria Bogdanov 1882 is here considered as a nomen nudum. The history of Bogdanov's manuscript, and the name in the literature, is discussed. Bogdanov never published an available description of his genus Kessleria, and it only appeared in a single mention in a caption of his Figure 3 in an 1882 publication. As he otherwise classified the species in Scaphirhynchus, we do not consider this as an available genus description. In 1905, Jordan was the first author to use the name Kessleria in a fashion that satisfies the conditions of the ICZN Code, so it would be available as Kessleria Jordan (ex Bogdanov) 1905, although still preoccupied by Kessleria Nowicki 1864 in Lepidoptera. The oldest available name for the genus is Pseudoscaphirhynchus Nikolskii 1900.