Homarus Gammarus - Taxonomic History

Taxonomic History

Homarus gammarus was first given a binomial name by Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae, published in 1758. That name was Cancer gammarus, since Linnaeus' concept of the genus Cancer at that time included all large crustaceans.

H. gammarus is the type species of the genus Homarus, as determined by Direction 51 of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. Prior to that direction, confusion arose because the species had been referred to by several different names, including Astacus marinus and Homarus vulgaris, and also because Friedrich Weber's description of the genus had been overlooked until rediscovered by Mary Rathbun, rendering any prior assignments of type species (for Homarus ) invalid for Homarus .

The type specimen of Homarus gammarus was a lectotype selected by Lipke Holthuis in 1974. It came from 57°53′N 11°32′E / 57.883°N 11.533°E / 57.883; 11.533, near Marstrand, Sweden (48 kilometres or 30 miles northwest of Gothenburg), but both it and the paralectotypes have since been lost.

The common name for H. gammarus preferred by the Food and Agriculture Organization is "European lobster", but the species is also widely known as the "common lobster".