Undescribed species and the Internet

[Barry M. OConnor]

At 8:41 AM -0400 5/21/02, Bill Shear wrote:

>Does anyone know of any recent cases of this kind of thing?  In more than 35
>years in systematics, I have never encountered it, though warnings are often
>uttered.
>
In the first edition of Jerry Krantz's "A Manual of Acarology", he
illustrated several mites from North America as representatives of their
families.  These were listed as genus "sp." in the figure legends.  A
European worker promptly copied the figures, wrote short descriptions based
on them, named them all "krantzi" and published them in his private
journal.  I'm not sure he got Krantz's permission, since there's no
reference to the author's having seen the specimens.

Barry M. OConnor
Curator & Professor             phone: (734) 763-4354
Museum of Zoology               FAX: (734) 763-4080
University of Michigan          e-mail: bmoc at umich.edu
1109 Geddes Ave.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1079  USA