[Taxacom] formation of zoological names with Mc, Mac, etc.

[Francisco Welter-Schultes]

Dick,
it is certainly very interesting from the point of view of historical 
biology, to distinguish exactly between the authors of 
important publications, and not to confound two authors with similar 
names. You are right that in most (not all) cases, initials will help 
us to recognise which author is exactly meant.

> "There is a strong recommendation not to use initials of first names
> in a taxon name author string, never and nowhere." 

This concerns only the use of initials in taxon name author strings, 
which are used as identifiers in computer environments. Not the use 
of initials in other contexts.
Never means that no author should be combined with initials. 
Nowhere means that initials should not be used in taxon name author 
strings regardless of where they were mentioned, in journal articles 
or databases. Everything is electronical today.

Taxon name author strings (genus-species-author-year) are used as 
global unique identifiers for species. In such a string, initials are 
a serious problem. A computer cannot automatically see that O. F. 
Müller and Müller are the same authors, and that the two taxon name 
author strings refer to the same taxon. Manual input is necessary to 
lump the identifiers, this is really a serious problem in electronic 
environments.

So if you write a text for a journal article, of course you can use 
initials to distinguish two authors with identical surnames, in the 
text or in literature citations. But it is not necessary to do this 
in a taxon name author string. 

A uniform commonly applied practice is necessary if connecting 
electronic biodiversity related information should work more 
efficiently. Some databases use initials, some not. Those who use 
initials, like you, can quickly remove the initials from their files 
and everything is fine. Those who don't use initials cannot add the 
initials, because they do not know them. So the only possible 
solution is to remove them everywhere. This is why this 
recommendation is so strong.

This is not a problem in botany where a TDWG-like standard for 
authors was created. Zoologists are currently being requested to 
solve the problems of their authors, because they provide obstacles, 
and other identifiers (LSIDs or other barcoding systems) have not 
provided a solution for the problem. Linnean names seem to be the 
electronic identifier system of the future, so there is some pressure 
coming from this side.

Your example Adams is one of the best and outstanding cases to 
demonstrate that initials in taxon name author strings are really 
serious problems for computers.

If you upload a file with 10,000 names of species to say a GBIF or 
whatever database, the GBIF recipient can manually (under high costs) 
recognize that all your O. F. Müller author names will most 
probably correspond to Müller author names of other GBIF database 
entries, and teach (under high costs) a program to understand this.

But now take a genus 
Elona H. & A. Ad., 1855
or a species
Virpazaria aspectulabeatidis A., P. L. Reischütz & Subai 2009.

Neither a computer program not a GBIF databaser, only an insider is 
able to understand and decode such strings.

Without initials:
Elona Adams & Adams, 1855
Virpazaria aspectulabeatidis Reischütz, Reischütz & Subai 2009.

Your example concerning the Sowerby names would be converted to:

Conus catenatus Sowerby, 1850 
and 
Conus catenatus Sowerby, 1875

These two taxon name author strings differ perfectly from each other, 
you gave an excellent example why is it important to include the 
year in a taxon name author string. No computer will ask you 
why genus, species and author are identical. This is a very good 
example of how useful the year is.

In the following examples:

Clausilia calcarea Boettger, 1878 
Clausilia calcarea Boettger, 1880  

Clausilia chia Boettger, 1878  
Clausilia chia Boettger, 1889  

Helix balcanica Kobelt, 1876  
Helix balcanica Kobelt, 1903  

Helix praetexta Pfeiffer, 1848  
Helix praetexta Pfeiffer, 1871  

we have the same situation. The computer will not have a 
problem in understanding that these are always different strings. And 
the computer will not ask how many Boettgers, Kobelts or 
Pfeiffers were actually involved.

Best regards
Francisco

University of Goettingen, Germany
www.animalbase.org