vanishing taxonomists

[Christoffer Schander]

Are the taxonomists really vanishing? Yes and no. I have in the past
two months written to 170 Natural history/Zoology museums and to date
received replies from 94 of them. The results so far shows that the
number of invertebrate (including insect) taxonomists (curators) have
decreased with slightly more than 50 in the last 20 years, but the
number of vertebrate taxonomists have actually increased with about
150. So, SOME taxonomists are vanishing, while others are
proliferating.

I will get back to TAXACOM with a more full report in a couple of
weeks when I have heard back from more institutions.

Chris Schander
Arctic Station, University of Copenhagen





The serious side of the whimsical(?) discussion on captive breeding of
taxonomists is that we ARE being out-Darwined as regards the opportunity
for "reproductive success", which in academia is defined as who gets to
pass their particular philosophy, techniques, values, gospel, etc. on to
the next generation of students.
Barbara Ertter
University and Jepson Herbaria
University of California at Berkeley