major bee omission in Nomina Insecta Nearctica

[Doug Yanega]

Apologies for crossposting, but people need to know about this. By
accident, I just discovered that both the printed and on-line versions
(and, I presume, the CD-ROM) of the NIN are missing 18 valid,
non-synonymized names for Perdita species (Hymenoptera: Andrenidae)
published by P.H. Timberlake in a single paper in 1980, 17 of them new - a
paper which had some 46 new names published, and 29 of them DID make it
into the list. That the others disappeared is truly puzzling and
distressing.

The reference is Timberlake, PH. 1980. Univ. Cal. Pub. 85: 1-65 (this is
the Supplementary Studies II, the last volume of Tim's massive Perdita
opus)

the taxa missing from the NIN are:

P (Macroteropsis) anthracina
" " parkeri
" (Epimacrotera) albomarginata
" " mazatlanica
" (Hexaperdita) labrosa
" (Perditella) minuta
" (Perdita) albescens
" " chemsaki
" " elimata
" " flavicornis
" " fulviventris
" " hiemalis
" " hirtuosa
" " janzeni
" " pernitens
" " submaerens
" " subrufiventris
" " venustella

This is a pretty major omission, and it's bewildering how so many names
from a single reference could be lost in the shuffle like that. I thought
the whole point of checklists was so that people wouldn't be compelled to
spend hours digging through the primary literature to see if names were
valid or preoccupied, etc. - this does little for my trust in the NIN.

Peace,


Doug Yanega       Dept. of Entomology           Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California - Riverside, Riverside, CA 92521
phone: (909) 787-4315
                  http://www.icb.ufmg.br/~dyanega/
  "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
        is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82