[Taxacom] Technical question

[Bob Mesibov]

I would be very grateful for advice on a lectotypification problem. Here
I've generalised it for simplicity:

Suppose Smith (1900) describes Aus bus from 2 individual arthropods of
the same sex from the same locality. He illustrates the same diagnostic
anatomical parts of each, and there isn't much doubt that 'Aus bus'
applies to both specimens.

You now want to designate a lectotype of Aus bus. You track down the
specimens, and find that Smith had disarticulated them and mounted the
bits on microscope slides. The good news is that Smith was a great
illustrator and you can positively link each illustration with a bit on
one slide or other.

The bad news is that the slides mix the bits up, and it is now
impossible to say for sure which bits came from which of the 2 original
specimens.

You therefore choose an appropriate bit on a particular slide (say, the
diagnostic genitalia or wing) which was illustrated by Smith, and
designate that bit as the lectotype of Aus bus; that slide becomes the
'type slide'. The same diagnostic bit on another slide you designate a
paralectotype.

Question: what to do with all the other disarticulated bits? You know
they came from the 2 syntypes, but it's now impossible to confidently
associate any of the bits with either the lectotype or the paralectotype
('associate' here means they came from the same specimen), and under sec
73.2.2 of the Code the other bits cannot simply remain 'syntypes'.

Do you

(a) Include the other bits in the lectotypification process as
paralectotypes?
(b) Exclude the other bits from the process, leaving them with no
taxonomic status?
-- 
Dr Robert Mesibov
Honorary Research Associate
Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery
and School of Zoology, University of Tasmania
Home contact: PO Box 101, Penguin, Tasmania, Australia 7316
Ph (03) 64371195; 61 3 64371195
Webpage: http://www.qvmag.tas.gov.au/mesibov.html