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

[Tony.Rees at csiro.au]

Hi, Francisco.

You wrote:

<snip>
I do not remember a case where a genus-species-author-year 
combination for a currently used name does not provide a unique 
identifier. Theoretically this is possible, the Commission can rule 
such things.
</snip>

That may be true, but there are many systems that need to store non-current as well as current names.

You also need to consider the case for genus names where the identifier is of the form genus-author-year. There are a small number of these that are not unique.

I would also take a small issue with a statement of yours in your earlier message, namely:

<snip>
Current best practice guide promoted by ZooBank and other 
"multidispciplinal" databases (extending over more than one 
animal group) seems to go in the direction to recommend to spell the 
author strictly and consistently as in the original publication, 
eventually converted to nominative case and Latin script, and to use 
a "preferred spelling" of an author only if the spelling was 
ambiguous or abbreviated in the original source.
</snip>

I think you are promoting one viewpoint here while ignoring the fact that there are others who promote the standardization of spelling of author names (or abbreviations in the botanical fraternity). Myself I am happy to hear the arguments either way, but I do not perceive the case as really settled.

The issue of M'Clelland vs. McLelland and so on are but one example of this; surnames transcribed from non-latin languages in multiple ways are also a consistent source of problems. I remember reading somewhere of 6 or 8 (or possibly more) ways that the Russian leader Gorbachev's surname was to be found transcribed in relevant documents, also I believe Shakespeare's name appears spelled at least 4 ways on his plays and related writings. It seems to me that sometimes there are merits in retrospectively treating all as variants of a single preferred spelling, and to use that for information transfer and reconciliation. As I see it, the botanists have a head start on the zoologists in this respect so why not look at their experiences before deciding that the "original spelling always rules"...

I think this topic has been visited before on the list, and again no firm consensus was reached from memory - maybe time to hear from others too.

Regards,

Tony Rees
Manager, Divisional Data Centre,
CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research,
GPO Box 1538,
Hobart, Tasmania 7001, Australia
Ph: 0362 325318 (Int: +61 362 325318)
Fax: 0362 325000 (Int: +61 362 325000)
e-mail: Tony.Rees at csiro.au
Manager, OBIS Australia regional node, http://www.obis.org.au/ 
Biodiversity informatics research activities: http://www.cmar.csiro.au/datacentre/biodiversity.htm
Personal info: http://www.fishbase.org/collaborators/collaboratorsummary.cfm?id=1566


-----Original Message-----
From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Francisco Welter-Schultes
Sent: Friday, 28 August 2009 8:59 AM
To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] formation of zoological names with Mc, Mac, etc.

Paul is absolutely right that taxon name author strings are not 
truely unique. In practical life they are used as if they were, but 
in theory they are not. 
But of course it is not necessary to have 10 fields.

In AnimalBase we needed to add a 5th field "original spelling" 
(includes original combination, so I confirm Doug's assumption, 
usually the same subspecific names were established in different 
species) to create a unique entry (the program does not allow two 
identical entries). This was needed in estimated 200 out of 20,000 
cases, around 1 %, maybe a little more. In some 20 out of 20,000 
names (0.1 %) we in addition needed to add "page" (we simply add the 
page number in brackets to the "original spelling" field - but this 
is just a trick to avoid a 6th field) to get a unique name.

As so often, Linnaeus himself was the first to create the problems.
Papilio aglaja  Linnæus, 1758  p. 465  
Papilio aglaja  Linnæus, 1758  p. 481  

(there is a second example, Cardium muricatum, but Linnaeus 
saw and corrected that on p. 824. All other names were unique.)

Page alone is not sufficient as a 5th field, we have examples where 
identical subspecific names for different species were established 
on the same page (and here, Linneaus was not the first to create the 
problems...).

I don't know why the problem has never arised as such in connecting 
biodiversity related information, but it is possibly because these 
cases concern original combinations, the biodiversity databases work 
with currently used genus-species combinations.

I do not remember a case where a genus-species-author-year 
combination for a currently used name does not provide a unique 
identifier. Theoretically this is possible, the Commission can rule 
such things.

Author and year are important although they are rarely needed 
for providing a unique identifier in a currently used name (only when 
homonyms match weirdly, or the Commission allowed it), the most 
important thing is their function for the error control.

Different generic placements do indeed create problems, they must be 
treated as two different identifiers, two different species, they 
cannot be lumped automatically, this is one of the general problems 
of Linnean names. It can only be recommended not to change generic 
placements if not absolutely necessary.

Francisco


University of Goettingen, Germany
www.animalbase.org

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