Registration of animal names

[Steve at]

>        There was a discussion of "registration" of new names using Zool.
>Record in the context of the last revision of the ICZN.  The idea that a
>new name would not be valid until it appeared in Zool.Record was not
>approved, and given their lack of complete coverage of taxonomic
>publications, it was probably a good idea not to trust them with any formal
>"registration" function.

I believe this misses the point.  Currently it is the undertaking of the
Zoological Record to find publications containing taxonomic events.  As we
are all well aware, this can be a daunting task for even a small taxonomic
group, forget about all animals.  The registration proposal would require
that authors send reprints (or something similar) to Zoo. Rec. for
inclusion.  This shifts the responsibility from Zool. Rec. to authors and
will (by definition) mean that Zoo. Rec. IS complete (if the name isn't
there, it isn't valid).

<soap-box-on>

If the taxonomic community is serious about activities such as GBIF, Species
2000, All Taxa and the like, then we may well need to take a good long look
at how we work and question some of our long-held and fundamental beliefs.
To suggest that sending a reprint of latest your taxonomic paper to London
to be included in the "Global List of Life" is too much work or places too
much responsibility on authors or will exclude some researchers who don't
have access to postal services is total crap.  If we want truly global
taxonomic initiatives to succeed then everyone must contribute.  I would
have thought that sticking a reprint in an envelope and sending it to London
(or wherever) would have paid huge dividends well beyond the minimal costs.

<soap-box-off>

Steve Shattuck
CSIRO Entomology
biolink at ento.csiro.au