Recognition of nomenclatural standing of Salmonella typhi (Approved Lists 1980), Salmonella enteritidis (Approved Lists 1980) and Salmonella typhimurium (Approved Lists 1980), and conservation of the specific epithets enteritidis and tyahimurium.: Request for an Opinion

In 1994 the Judicial Commission of the ICSB announced that re Minor and Popoff's Request for an Opinion in 1987 to designate Salmonella enterica sp. nov., nom. rev, as the type and only species of the genus Salmonella was denied. Thus, the current species of the genus Salmonella are Salmonella typhimurium, Salmonella enteritidis, Salmonella typhi, Salmonella choleraesuis (including six subspecies) and Salmonella bongori, with the type species, S. choleraesuis (Smith 1894) Weldin 1927 (Approved Lists 1980). Because the decision of the Judicial Commission about the request by Le Minor in 1987 was suspended for 7 years, the non-validated name 'S. enterica' has been used among microbiologists and has caused confusion in the nomenclature of Salmonella. In order to overcome such confusion, and because of their importance as human pathogens, we herein propose to recognize the nomenclatural status of S. typhi, S. enteritidis and S. typhimurium as species and request to issue an Opinion to conserve the specific epithets enteritidis and typhimurium in the species names Salmonella enteritidis and Salmonella typhimurium.