nomen nudum

The skull of Little Foot, sometimes referred to under the nomen nudum Australopithecus prometheus In taxonomy, a nomen nudum ('naked name'; plural nomina nuda) is a designation which looks exactly like a scientific name of an organism, and may have originally been intended to be one, but it has not been published with an adequate description. This makes it a "bare" or "naked" name, which cannot be accepted as it stands. A largely equivalent but much less frequently used term is nomen tantum ("name only"). Sometimes, "nomina nuda" is erroneously considered a synonym for the term "unavailable names". However, not all unavailable names are nomina nuda which applies to published names, i.e. any published name that does not fulfill the requirements of Article 12 (if published before 1931) or Article 13 (if published after 1930). Similarly, a species might be published with a partial or incomplete description that is not enough to follow the rules of publication. This will be described as nomen subnudum (abbreviated nom. subnud.) or occasionally as seminudum.

In zoology