Coelacanth ethics and the ICZN

[Geoff Read]

I assume this year's story of the newly-named  coelacanth is familiar to
many from other sources, although it never appeared on Taxacom at the
time. Basically one person went behind the back of another  (the
discoverer) and scooped him with the name.  The chief protagonists were
Laurent Pouyaud, and Mark Erdmann.

Viewed in the spirit of normal scientific collegiality and fair play Pouyaud's
paper was a perfidious act. What brought it back to  mind was opening my
code today at Appendix A. and reading,  "A zoologist should not publish a
new name if he or she has reason to believe that another person has
already recognized the same taxon and intends to establish a name for it
..."  It's nice to know it was already proscribed there too. Also there's an
injunction to editors not to allow such.

Shades of those two American dinosaur men last century?


--
  Geoff Read <g.read at niwa.cri.nz>