[Taxacom] New lizard species

[Francisco Welter-Schultes]

I agree absolutely with Gary that the lizard names were not 
made available under Art. 13.1.1 if no differentiating characters 
were given. 

> All the authors needed to do was say something like "G at position 
> 179 in gene X" 

It is good that molecular biologists usually don't know this trick. 
If they would be able to apply it. But even then, this would be 
debated. I would prefer defining a character in the sense of Art. 
13.1.1 as a recognizable attribute that is produced by the organism 
by using/decoding/reading the DNA Code, and not the DNA Code itself.

They could also have said "the new lizard species is green, while 
the others are blue", even if they knew it was not true, but this 
would also have made the names available. Good that they usually 
don't know this trick either...

Francisco


University of Goettingen, Germany
www.animalbase.org