abbreviations for author names

[christian thompson]

Doug:

There is too much diversity among zoologists, etc., so no standard source exists for abbreviations let alone names of authors. So, among zoologists we still find arguments over Linne versus Linnaeus!

We at the BDWD use full last names and do plan to have a listing of them up soon. Neal Evenhuis is working on it and has a preliminary list at his Bishop Museum site. The people at DEI did, however, about a dozen or so years ago publish a list of abbreviations entomologists in, I believe, Beitr. Ent.

BUT then wonders about the need for author names. These, despite what some people think are NOT part of scientific names in Zoology. However, some zoologists maintain their usage as a honorific. Birdwatchers and others gave up on them years. No real information value. And with online nomenclators to find names, no real need to use them. If you want to know what an abbreviation means, why not just enter the scientific name into online nomenclator and see what comes up?

Cheers


F. Christian Thompson
Systematic Entomology Lab., USDA
c/o Smithsonian Institution
MRC-0169 NHB
PO Box 37012
Washington, DC 20013-7012
(202) 382-1800 voice
(202) 786-9422 FAX
cthompso at sel.barc.usda.gov e-mail
www.diptera.org  web site

>>> Doug Yanega <dyanega at UCR.EDU> 03/08/06 02:17PM >>>
Hi. I notice that there are various websites that give complete lists
of the abbreviations for botanical authors, but there appear to be no
such resources for zoological names. I can find archived mentions of
the 1998 "Nomina Auctorum" being available online, but none of those
links appear to function now. Is there really no online resource to
decipher abbreviations for author names in zoology?
--

Doug Yanega        Dept. of Entomology         Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California - Riverside, Riverside, CA 92521-0314
phone: (951) 827-4315 (standard disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
              http://cache.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html 
   "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
         is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82