FW: L. or L. emend. Thellung? And the citation of authorities

[Doug Yanega]

In Mary Barkworth's message, the following point came up:

>Do genebanks routinely make herbarium specimens for all their accessions?

Which reminds me of something I recall hearing from a colleague:

Apparently, after depositing a sequence in GenBank's archives, you CANNOT
change its species designation, even if it is later discovered (by
reference to voucher material, taxonomic revision, etc.) to be erroneous.
This evidently came directly from the GenBank administration, when this
colleague wished to correct a mistake made in species designation of a
sequence he *himself* had deposited. Assuming this is true, am I the only
person who finds this policy distressing? What is the point of making
vouchers as a safety check if GenBank refuses to change records later found
to be in error? Sure, YOU might know the sequence is mislabeled, but every
other GenBank user in the world will accept the species designation as it
appears in GenBank, and presumably never go to the trouble of checking to
see if there are vouchers.


Doug Yanega        Dept. of Entomology         Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California - Riverside, Riverside, CA 92521
phone: (909) 787-4315 (standard disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
           http://insects.ucr.edu/staff/yanega.html
  "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
        is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82