[Taxacom] Taxonomic carelessness - the case of Francis Walker

[Colin Favret]

Yes, we have the same thing with Walker aphids, although I don't have  
an example to rival yours.. Carelessness may have had nothing to do  
with it. As I understand it, he was paid on a per-species-description  
basis and may have intentionally given different names to the same  
insect species. There are other views: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ 
Francis_Walker_(entomologist)

  cheer, colin

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> Message: 4
> Date: Fri, 21 Aug 2009 12:03:10 +0100
> From: "George Beccaloni" <G.Beccaloni at nhm.ac.uk>
> Subject: [Taxacom] Taxonomic carelessness - the case of Francis Walker
> To: <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
> Message-ID: <15CF608D129D504FA6A540E374F1463D01ADB66A at HOMER.nhm.ac.uk>
> Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="us-ascii"
>
> Whilst curating the Natural History Museum's cockroach collection I  
> came
> across the following extraordinary example of Francis Walker's (1809 -
> 1874) carelessness:- in a single publication (his 1868 "Catalogue  
> of the
> Specimens of Blattariae in the Collection of the British Museum") he
> named a cockroach species three times (as Ischnoptera ruficeps,
> Nauphoeta ruficeps and Nauphoeta signifrons), all of which are
> considered to be synonyms of an earlier name (Oxyhaloa deusta  
> (Thunberg,
> 1784)). Not only that but he placed Ischnoptera  and Nauphoeta in two
> very different families (Blattidae and Panchloridae)! Considering that
> all the specimens look identical (with minor differences between
> ruficeps and signifrons); that he had both sexes of all except
> signifrons (but he didn't manage to sex some of the specimens
> correctly!); AND that they all came from the same country (South
> Africa), it makes you wonder whether he relied more on luck than
> judgement when naming species. I guess he independently coined the  
> name
> ruficeps for two of the taxa because of their reddish heads,  
> failing to
> remember that he had seen one of them before!
>
>
>
> Does anyone else have any worse examples of taxonomic carelessness, or
> is this a record?!
>
> ********************************************************************** 
> **
> ****
> Dr George Beccaloni,
> Curator of Orthopteroidea (cockroaches [including termites], mantids,
> earwigs, stick insects,
> grasshoppers, crickets etc) & the A. R. Wallace insect collection,
> Entomology Department,
> The Natural History Museum [British Museum (Natural History)],
> Cromwell Road,
> South Kensington,
> London SW7 5BD, UK.
> Tel. +44 (0)20 7942 5361
> Fax. +44 (0)20 7942 5229
>
> My Web CV:-
> http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/staff-directory/entomology/ 
> cv-353
> 4.html
> World catalogue of cockroaches:-
> http://blattodea.speciesfile.org/HomePage.aspx
> Blattodea Culture Group (cockroach study group):-
> http://blattodea-culture-group.org/
> The Alfred Russel Wallace Memorial Fund:- http://wallacefund.info/
> ********************************************************************** 
> **
> ****