This should start a thread ...

[Frederick W. Schueler]

ricardo wrote:

> You see, Richard what is US$ 150, a day wages?  If someone
> [were] talking about 15,000 it will be different cup of coffee...

* This is absolutely right. The thing that has most offended me about
this whole names-for-money thing is the way paying miniscule amounts for
the 'right' to specify the names cheapens taxonomy. The Canadian Museum
of Nature recently 'sold' one of Bob Anderson's weevils to Margaret
Atwood (to name after her father, so there was no cheapening of the name
pool) for $500 (CDN). If these sales are to be held, the sums the names
are sold for should at least be enough to pay for the discovery,
description, and publication of the name, and cover curatorial care of
the type series for a few decades.

fred schueler.
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         Eastern    Ontario    Biodiversity    Museum
                Grenville Co, Ontario, Canada
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