[Taxacom] Taxonomic carelessness

[Michael A. Ivie]

For nomenclatural carelessness ( as opposed to a species concept I don't 
agree with, i.e. Thomas Casey, or poor descriptions, i.e., Maurice Pic), 
there are 3 modern authors on Coleoptera that come to mind:

Roger Dajoz has been taken to task several times for creating synonyms, 
homonyms and other general disregard for detail: see for example Ivie, 
Slipinski and Wegrzynowicz (2001). New records and synonyms in the 
Colydiinae and Pycnornerini 
<http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1199&context=insectamundi> 
and references therein.

Giorgio Marcuzzi seems to me to have set some kind of record for naming 
2 different species as Diastolinus hummelincki:  one from Venezuela in 
1949 and one from St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, in 1962, plus, in 1954 a 
third that belongs in this group as Blapstinus hummelincki from 
Bonaire.  Two primary and a secondary homonyms by one guy! (The species 
are all very different!).  How can you forget you have used a name like 
hummelincki?

For simply obscure, terrible work, totally lacking in scholarship, that 
rendered several groups impossible, Mohammed Abdullah of Urbana, Reading 
and London, working in the 1960s and 1970s stands out. Nomenclatural 
rules have no hold over Dr. Abdullah!

Not on beetles, but an entomologist, the worst fate, though had to be 
the publication of Carrington's (1874) obituary of Francis Walker that 
lamented the lateness of his death. Ouch!

Mike

__________________________________________________

Michael A. Ivie, Ph.D., F.R.E.S.

Montana Entomology Collection
Marsh Labs, Room 50      
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