Should we use Ceratopsidae?

[UtahraptorFan]

The thread about the reinstatement of Stenonychosaurus and the naming of Latenivenatrix really got me to thinking (well, again) about whether we really should use Ceratopsidae. In it, Newt said that the name, Troodontidae, is still the valid name of the family, "though it's also possible someone will propose a replacement clade name for Troodontidae." Should that happen, the previously used Saurornithoididae seems the most likely, due to the "next available name" thing.

But, why does it seem as though nobody has thought to do this with Ceratopsidae? "Ceratops" has been a nomen dumium for likely more than a century and yet, nobody has seemed to be in any big hurry to either name the family after a valid genus or promote the subfamilies to family level (which seems to me like an easier way to go about it) and call them Centrosauridae and Chasmosauridae.

[Bowhead Whale]

I see what you mean: "Ceratpsians" seems more like a suitable name for a taxonomic "order" than for a "family"; it's a highly varied group and it now seems too wide to put together in a same family a Protoceratops and a Styracosaurus. The same order, yes, but not in the same family...

[Jose S.M.]

Protoceratops is not a part of Ceratopsidae actually, and ceratopsian is used as a more inclusive group that does includes Protoceratops and other animals like Psittacosaurus and Yinlong, ceratopsid is used to refer to animals of the Ceratopsidae family like Triceratops and Pachyrhinosaurus.

[Bowhead Whale]

So, Protoceratops is what? A Protoceratopsidae?

[Jose S.M.]

Exactly! Seems a little too obvious to be like  that if one thinks about it, I would sometimes doubt if I'm right about some family names because of that hehehe.  There's  more genera I'm the family but I read that some are in debate.

[Halichoeres]

It's etymologically mistaken (ought to have been "Ceratopidae" in the first place), and the type is a dubious genus, but there is so much inertia behind it now that nobody wants to change it. One of the main reasons scientific names exist in the first place is to provide some stability, so most taxonomists will tolerate some idiosyncrasies so that everybody doesn't have to rewrite their books.

[UtahraptorFan]

It's etymologically mistaken (ought to have been "Ceratopidae" in the first place), and the type is a dubious genus, but there is so much inertia behind it now that nobody wants to change it. One of the main reasons scientific names exist in the first place is to provide some stability, so most taxonomists will tolerate some idiosyncrasies so that everybody doesn't have to rewrite their books.

Okay. That makes sense. And after the publication of van der Reest, Currie (2017), I had read somewhere while looking up how they can stick with naming a family for a dubious genus that Troodontidae and Ceratopsidae (or, as you said that it should be, Ceratopidae) can stand because, at the very least, the meager remains on which "Troodon" and "Ceratops" are based can be proven to belong to members of those respective families.

[Halichoeres]

It's etymologically mistaken (ought to have been "Ceratopidae" in the first place), and the type is a dubious genus, but there is so much inertia behind it now that nobody wants to change it. One of the main reasons scientific names exist in the first place is to provide some stability, so most taxonomists will tolerate some idiosyncrasies so that everybody doesn't have to rewrite their books.

Okay. That makes sense. And after the publication of van der Reest, Currie (2017), I had read somewhere while looking up how they can stick with naming a family for a dubious genus that Troodontidae and Ceratopsidae (or, as you said that it should be, Ceratopidae) can stand because, at the very least, the meager remains on which "Troodon" and "Ceratops" are based can be proven to belong to members of those respective families.

Yeah, that's a good point too. It might be a different story if it were an indeterminate genasaur rather than an indeterminate ceratopsid.

[Bowhead Whale]

OK, now we learn we have to take the "s" off "ceratopsidae". It's becoming confusing.