Allotypes

[Doug Yanega]

To trim things down, I'll combine responses to three separate messages here -

>From: Thomas Pape <en-thomas at nrm.se>
>
>At 18.39 1996-02-27 -0600, Doug Yanega wrote:
>>                                              when
>>you're examining types solely to make an accurate identification, the
>>allotype, by itself, *can* be particularly important.
>
>Yes - by itself, or actually by its being authoritatively identified by the
>original author. NOT because it is an allotype.
>
>We have to distinguish between NAMING the species and IDENTIFYING the species.

Aren't both of these legitimate uses of type material? In my personal
experience, I examine type material far more often for the latter purpose
than the former. I can't be alone in this. It's virtually impossible to do
a thorough faunistic inventory of an insect group without examining types.
Systematic collections serve many purposes, I don't see why we can't have a
uniform set of policies that acknowledges the importance of each. Having
easy access to allotypes is what I see as part of such a policy.

>Assigning an allotype ANY formal nomenclatural value immediately raises the
>question of "lectoallotypes", "neoallotypes", and other constructions that I
>definitely NOT think are needed.

I wasn't suggesting giving them nomenclatural value - as Denis Brothers
mentioned, I am more concerned about the fact that some collections keep
them with primary types while others do not, which is a matter of
curatorial policy (often based strictly on the Code). The point is there
are times when access to the allotype can be important, and I was wondering
if we could do anything to improve this access instead of making it more
difficult. If it is a matter of each institution doing its own thing, as it
is presently (and as Denis suggests is fine), this would be fine *assuming*
that each institution is still fully aware of the identity and location of
every allotype in its possession. If there are *no* exceptions to this
assumption, then I will gladly withdraw my suggestion. Perhaps the fact
that I work primarily with Hymenoptera has biased my view of the utility of
allotypes, but again I am not alone in studying sexually-dimorphic insects.

>Again: NAMING is one thing, IDENTIFYING another. Rather than discussing
>whether subsequent designations of paratypes is desirable and should be
>allowed, why not discuss whether we really need paratypes at all? They are
>not name-bearing and in no way essential for NAMING a species-group taxon.
>They may be convenient as a pool from which we can draw a neotype, but apart
>from this.....?

Perhaps because we do not maintain collections simply for naming, but
*also* for identification? Paratypes are very useful for the latter
purpose, and I had always assumed that's why we had them in the first
place, so the variants and members of the opposite sex which do not
precisely match the holotype can also be recognized by subsequent workers.
Without paratypes, subsequent workers would have to guess at what the
original author's concept of the species was (at least for one sex), and go
digging around praying to stumble across specimens identified by that
author. It seems easier to me to give ALL such material a special label - a
paratype label. They do not require nomenclatural status to be useful.
        On the other hand, Robert Raven's recent message on secondary types
is of greater concern - if secondary types are afforded special status by
public *policy-makers*, then we have a potential for abuse (depending on
whether you view habitat protection policy as an abuse of science, of
course) if there is an open window on paratype designation by the original
author. It would probably be trivially easy to collect insects in a
threatened area and find several for which the describing author is still
alive. Whether this is good or bad is left as a philosophical exercise for
the reader, but either way it does represent an issue I had not
anticipated. A whole 'nother can of worms.
        [P.S. re-reading my original posting, it certainly *doesn't* sound
like I was making a distinction between *treating* allotypes as if they
were primary types, and *believing* that they were. I know they aren't, I
just expressed myself badly, and deserved some nasty comments. Sorry, Al.]
Sincerely,

Doug Yanega       Illinois Natural History Survey, 607 E. Peabody Dr.
Champaign, IL 61820 USA      phone (217) 244-6817, fax (217) 333-4949
 affiliate, Univ. of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Dept. of Entomology
  "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
        is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82