Allotypes

[Doug Yanega]

>From: Steve Shattuck <steves at ento.csiro.au>
>
>As for describing the opposite sex as a new species and then synonymising
>it, the only thing at risk is your reputation.

I fully agree - my point was that it's odd that such an abuse is still
quite within the rules.

>On a broader scale, what's the point of having a ton of paratypes?  If you
>have the primary type (be it holotype, neotype or lectotype), you have the
>name tied down.  If you really want to know what the species is, then you'll
>need a lot more material than just types (to quanify variation, develop a
>useful diagnosis, etc.)  On the other hand, I suppose if you want trading
>stock . . .

Supernumerary paratypes, as I replied to Al, I would agree are pretty much
a waste of time (even as "trading stock"), but no one seems to have the
same opinion of allotypes (of which there can be only one, so that
certainly isn't "type inflation"). Do you or do you not treat allotypes
differently, as a matter of practice? I broadened the example to include
paratypes because there doesn't seem a logical reason to *exclude* them, if
one is willing to allow follow-up designation of allotypes. Well,
though...if I'm permitted to be a bit cantankerous, suppose your original
designation is from a single specimen in truly awful condition (e.g.,
missing antennae, badly discolored, or with matted pubescence, etc.), and
you later find a nice series you are certain are conspecific, in which
crucial features are intact, and you wish to do a redescription. It could
serve some practical purpose, could it not, to be allowed to designate
these as paratypes when one publishes that redescription?
        Again, just because one might be *allowed* to designate follow-up
paratypes would not automatically mean that everyone out there would go
"paratype crazy" - I think most of us have a lot better things to do with
our time (I know, I should talk, yammering away here on the Net ;-) - I'm
just wondering what real *problems* would arise from giving authors that
prerogative, which they do not presently enjoy? Do you expect that this
prerogative would be abused, or that having someone designating extra
paratypes would constitute abuse? Frivolous, maybe, if a good paratype
series already exists, but *abusive*?

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