Undescribed species and the internet

[Bill Shear]

On 5/21/02 4:46 AM, "Ron Gatrelle" <gatrelle at TILS-TTR.ORG> wrote:


>
> I think that when a new taxon is found it should be described.  However, it
> seems that any number of people like to wait and describe things as part of
> a larger revisionary work.  What I don't like about this is 1) that
> species/subspecies need to be formalized in the face of rapid world
> environmental destabilization and 2) this leads some individuals to view
> entire genera or families as their personal domain and everyone else is
> expected (by them) to stay away from "their area".
>
It might seem like a good idea to publish new species right away, but there
are some problems.  First, the description appears out of context.
Secondly, one contributes to a diffuse and scattered literature.  Thirdly,
very few reputable journals are available to publish isolated descriptions
of solitary new taxa.  In fact, it is getting more and more difficult to
publish papers which consist largely of descriptions of taxa even if the
paper constitutes a revision.  I recently had the experience of an editor
asking me to cut out and "publish elsewhere" all the descriptive material
from a large monograph, leaving only the phylogenetic and biogeographic
analyses standing unsupported.  It seems nobody reads descriptions of new
species and nobody is interested in them (at least according to this
editor).

Bill Shear
Department of Biology
Hampden-Sydney College
Hampden-Sydney VA 23943
(434)223-6172
FAX (434)223-6374
email<wshear at email.hsc.edu>
Moderating e-lists:
Coleus at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/coleus
Opiliones at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/opiliones
Myriapod at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/myriapod
MilliPEET website at
http://www.fmnh.org/research_collections/zoology/zoo_sites/millipeet/home.ht
ml
SHAPE OF LIFE website at
http://www.pbs.org/kcet/shapeoflife/episodes/conq_explo1.html

"The old naturalists were so sensitive and sympathetic to nature that they
could be surprised by the ordinary events of life.  It was an incessant
miracle to them, and therefore gorgons and flying dragons were not
incredible to them.  The greatests and saddest defect is not credulity, but
our habitual forgetfulness that our science is ignorance."
Henry David Thoreau, Journals, March 5, 1860.