language

[Piotr Naskrecki]

Dear colleagues,

I would like to add my two cents to the discussion on what language is
appropriate for taxonomic descriptions. To me the solution is quite obvious
- a pictorial one.
Let me start with a question: why do we produce taxonomic descriptions?
Basically, we are trying to translate into words structures, colors,
sometimes behavioral traits, so that readers can perform a reverse
translation and form mental images of these things. Of course, the less
these readers are familiar with the language of the description, the less
faithful the translation. Imagine now that we completely eliminate written
descriptions and replace them with images of the traits that we a trying to
describe. The ambiguity vanishes regardless of the language skills of the
writer and the reader. But what about differential diagnoses, you may ask.
Simple, in your diagnosis refer to illustrations and instead of saying
"Pygidial furrow slightly less hirsute than in P. equatorialis" you say
"Diagnostic difference illustrated in Fig. 1A (P. viridis  sp.n.) and Fig.
1B (P. equatorialis)."

A good alpha taxonomist is one who can make us imagine the newly described
organism the way she/he sees it (remember, I am not talking about
classification and systematics, merely the descriptive part), and not
coincidentally, the best taxonomic papers are those that are superbly
illustrated. Of course printing taxonomic descriptions on paper is already
nearly prohibitively expensive and replacing text with illustrations would
only increase the cost (although think of that 1000-to-1 ratio). But whether
we like it or not, digital media will replace traditional publications.
Taxonomic journals as we know them will either go extinct or evolve into
something completely different, and the cost difference between "printing"
500 pages of text or 300 pages of color photographs will disappear. As a
matter of fact, there already is a very well known taxonomic journal, the
name of which I will withhold for now, that is in the process of
transforming itself into a modern vehicle that will allow taxonomists
publish an unlimited number of illustrations in digital format practically
for free. Others surely will follow.

Regards,
Piotr Naskrecki
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Piotr Naskrecki, Ph. D.
Visiting Curatorial  Associate
Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University
26 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
Phone: (617) 496-1221
Fax: (617) 495-5667

An Illustrated Catalog of Orthoptera (http://viceroy.eeb.uconn.edu/cd) - a
database of the Orthoptera of the World on a CD ROM

Orthoptera Species File Online (http://viceroy.eeb.uconn.edu/Orthoptera) - a
database of the Orthoptera of the World Online

Katydids of La Selva Biological Station Costa Rica
(http://viceroy.eeb.uconn.edu/interkey/titlepg)

Taxonomy and Collection Manager software
(http://viceroy.eeb.uconn.edu/interkey/database.html)