Family Nygellidae

                                 Revised 01/20/26

Classification:

Phylum Nematoda

  Class Enoplea

    Subclass Dorylaimia

         OrderDorylaimida

   Suborder Nygolaimina
  Superfamily  Nygolaimoidea

    Nygellidae Andrassy, 1958

Characteristics:

Ref. Pena-Santiago (2006)

 

hmad and Jairajpuri, 1981 indicated that the presence of cardiac glands and a mural tooth were more important characteristics of Nygolaimoidea than the spiral sheath around the baseal portion of the esophagus because the spural sheath occurs in some other dorylaims.

Classified as predators (Yeates et al, 1993).

A note on the authority for the family Nygellidae

Andrassy (1958) proposed the subfamily Nygellinae in a publication that is not well known, written in Hungarian, and focussed on the Hungarian fauna (see images below).

Images provided by Dr. Reyes Pena-Santiago, December 2021

 

Jairajpuri (1964), apparently unaware of Andrassy's paper, proposed a new family Nygellidae and a new subfamily Nygellinae. The new family and subfamily accommodated the single genus, Nygellus Heyns (1982). Ahmad and Jairajpuri (1981), also apparently unaware of the Andrassy (1958) document, agreed with the designation of Jairajpuri, 1964 as authority for Nygellidae although Siddiqi(1968) considered the family name invalid. 

In his 2009 book, Andrassy clearly indicated that he was the authority for both Nygellinae and Nygellidae and did not mention Jairaqjpuri in that regard.

On the point of authoruty for the family and subfamily, I have benefitted with the wisdom of, and correspondence with, Dr. Reyes Pena-Santiago.  He wrote: "Andrássy is the author of both taxa, Nygellidae and Nygellinae. The explanation is the statement included in Chapter 8. Article 36.1 of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN, https://www.iczn.org/the-code/the-code-online/, ( in fact a difficult text):

 

Article 36. Principle of Coordination

36.1. Statement of the Principle of Coordination applied to family-group names 

A name established for a taxon at any rank in the family group is deemed to have been simultaneously established for nominal taxa at all other ranks in the family group; all these taxa have the same type genus, and their names are formed from the stem of the name of the type genus [Art. 29.3] with appropriate change of suffix [Art. 34.1]. The name has the same authorship and date at every rank.

Example. The family name HESPERIIDAE (Lepidoptera), based on Hesperia Fabricius, 1793, was established in 1809 by Latreille (as Hesperides). Latreille is deemed also to have simultaneously established the coordinate superfamily name HESPERIOIDEA and the coordinate subfamily name HESPERIINAE (even though the former was first used by Comstock & Comstock (1904) and the latter by Watson (1893)). The authorship and date of all three names is Latreille, 1809.

The key point is that the ICZN establishes that all the names belonging to the family group (superfamily, family, subfamily, tribe) must keep the same authorship and date, independently of their rank. Of course, the root is maintained in all the names, but the ending (-oidea, -idae, -inae, -ini, respectively) will change according to the rank."

So, Andrassy's establishment of the subfamily Nygellinae results in he, not Jairajpuri, being the authority for the family Nygellidae.  The authorship and date of names is Andrassy, 1958!

 

 

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Body size range for the species of this Family in the database - Click:

References

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