BioConcepts

morphotypeMorphotyp (ger.)

• 1) The type of the dimorphic form of a species.
  category type see also allotype holotype

  1910

  morphotype [...] the second form of a dimorphic sex

  Brues, C.T. in Muttkowski, R.A. (1910). Catalogue of the Odonata of North America, vol. 1 (=Bulletin of the Public Museum of the City of Milwaukee, vol. 1): 10.

  1912

  Morphotype: The type of the dimorphic form of a species

  Banks, N. & Caudell, A.N. (1912). The Entomological Code. A Code of Nomenclature for Use in Entomology: 14-5.

  1933

  morphotype [...] the type specimen of a different form of a dimorphic or polymorphic species

  Frizzell, D.L. (1933). Terminology of types. Amer. Midl. Nat. 14, 637-668: 657; cf. Drake, C.J. & Harris, H.M. (1928). Two undescribed water-striders from Grenada (Hemiptera). Florida Entomol. 12, 7-8: 8.

• 2) A list of the (especially homologous) features characteristic for a group of organisms.
  category type

  1937

  Trennt man erst einmal nach morphologischen Merkmalen, so muß man sich darüber klar sein, daß die so isolierten Morphotypen unter jedem anderen Gesichtspunkt gesehen immer noch Populationen darstellen können und in den meisten Fällen auch darstellen werden.

  Roemer, W. & Rosenstiel, K. von (1937). Die landwirtschaftlichen Sammelarbeiten der Expedition und ihre Ergebnisse. In: Scheibe, A. (ed.). Deutsche im Hindukusch. Bericht der Deutschen Hindukusch-Expedition 1935 der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft, 55-97: 88.

  1948

  The term morphotype is here introduced for the first time. It is the equivalent of the morphological type or Morphotypus, as used in German. […] it has long been felt among systematic biologists that there are norms (standards) with which actual form-conditions can be compared, in an analogous way as, in the physical sciences, we measure by comparing sizes with standard size units, e.g. the standard meter. In other words, we determnine deviations from an established norm. In morphology, the norm is the morphotype which is an abstraction of the actual form variety within a group of organisms of the same structural plan. It is arrived at by abstraction from the actual form variety within a group (in praxi, usually but no necessarily a systematic category) and thus the actual form conditions can be thought of as being derived from it. Thus, we can arrive at the familiar morphotype of the skeleton of the tetrapod limb disregarding all the numerous peculiarities of form in the inidividual representatives of the group, ancd including only those features thiat are unspecialized and mutually present in all by constructing an extremity consisting proximally of a single, rod-like stylopodium, distally followed by two rod-like elements of the zeugopodium and the latter forming the base of a five-rayed autopodium.

  Zangerl, R. (1948). The methods of comparative anatomy and its contribution to the study of evolution. Evolution 2, 351-374: 355; 357.
  

  1982

  A morphotype is a list of the homologies (synapomorphies) of a group.

  Patterson, C. (1982). Morphological characters and homology. In: Joysey, K.A. & Friday, E.A. (eds.). Problems of Phylogenetic Reconstruction, 21-74: 35.
  

  1982

  morphotype 1: In taxonomy, a specimen selected to represent a given intrapopulation variant (morph). 2: A list of the morphological characters presumed present in an ancestral species.

  Lincoln, R.J., Boxshall, G.A. & Clark, P.F. (1982). A Dictionary of Ecology, Evolution and Systematics: 160.