FW: Bad Examples

[Fournier, Judith]

If you want incomplete or bad descriptions, some of those provided by Otto
Fabricius (1780). Fauna Groenlandica are wonderful:

1.   _Nereis noctiluca_:  _Nereis_ with barely visible body.
          I often saw this one in mud from sea bottom visible among roots of
      green  algae, moving rapidly in the night with a blue green glitter,
and I could not
     examine it attentively because it was so small and quick....

and:
2.   _Nereis coerulea_:  _Nereis_ glabrous, sky blue.
          Once I caught I glimpse of it near the seashore, running on a
stoney bottom,
     similar to _Nereis viridis_, with a shiny sky-blue body; I did not
examine it properly,
     and did not see it anywhere thereafter.

 ... Science was much simpler 200 years ago!

     Judy Fournier
 ----------
From: owner-taxacom
To: Multiple recipients of list TAXACOM
Subject: Bad Examples
Date: Wednesday, October 11, 1995 10:23AM

The thread on keys has been most entertaining.  I have another
request for bad examples ---I'd like to be able to give
students some really outrageously bad examples of species
description, as for example when someone described the
pedicellaria of an echinoid as a new hydroid species.  Now my
colleagues can call tell me of bad examples in their field, but
I don't want to use any that impugn the reputations of the
living.  I'd rather use published examples from the past?  Can
you think of any such "good" bad examples?  Thanks, Judy Winston

 --


Judith E. Winston, Ph.D.             e-mail: jwinston at leo.vsla.edu
Director of Research                      Ph:   540-666-8653
Virginia Museum of Natural History        Fax:  540-632-6487
1001 Douglas Ave., Martinsville, VA 24112