[Taxacom] New lizard species

[Stephen Thorpe]

depends what you mean by "characters" 

ICZN glossary:

character, n. 
Any attribute of organisms used for recognizing, differentiating, or classifying taxa. 
 
I think "any attribute" is sufficiently general???
 
Stephen




________________________________
From: Anthony Gill <gill.anthony at gmail.com>
To: Stephen Thorpe <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>
Cc: fwelter at gwdg.de; taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Sent: Sun, 6 June, 2010 1:06:21 PM
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] New lizard species

I fail to see how a node-based definition includes characters. If there are characters that support the Bayesian relationships, these are the ones that must be identified in the diagnosis. As it stands, I do not think the diagnosis satisfies the Code.


On Sat, Jun 5, 2010 at 5:48 PM, Stephen Thorpe <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz> wrote:

unfortunately, I must disagree that the new species descriptions fail to comply to Article 13.1.1.
>
>
>Article 13.1.1 "be accompanied by a description or definition that states in words characters that are purported to differentiate the taxon"
>
>'Diagnosis. This species includes all populations that cluster with those from the southern portion of the Congolian rainforest included in this study (southern Cameroon, Gabon and Congo), with strong support in the Bayesian species delimitation model'
> 
>Francisco say: It would be equivalent to a statement "colour differs from species B", without announcing how it would differ. It makes no difference if a computer tells me under 99.999 % likelyhood that the colour differs
> 
>Article 13.1.1 does not explicitly rule out relative characters, so you could say something like "Diagnosis: 5mm larger on average than the other species", and that would be OK. The article also only explicitly requires you to specify the characters, and not how they differ. So you could just say "differs in size, shape, colour, texture, ..."
> 
>If the article is intended to be more restrictive, then this needs to be made explicit ...
> 
>Stephen
>
>
>________________________________
>From: Francisco Welter-Schultes <fwelter at gwdg.de>
>To: fwelter at gwdg.de; Heath Blackmon <coleoguy at gmail.com>
>Cc: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
>Sent: Sun, 6 June, 2010 5:53:48 AM
>
>Subject: Re: [Taxacom] New lizard species
>
>
>> couldn't the fact that when analyzed these populations sort in
>> a certain way be considered a trait and thus satisfy the
>> requirements of 13.1.1?
>
>No it cannot, this is the point. It would be equivalent to a
>statement "colour differs from species B", without announcing how it
>would differ. It makes no difference if a computer tells me under
>99.999 % likelyhood that the colour differs.
>
>Francisco
>
>
>University of Goettingen, Germany
>www.animalbase.org
>
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-- 
Dr Anthony C. Gill
Assistant Director for Collections
International Institute for Species Exploration
School of Life Sciences
PO Box 874501
Arizona State University
Tempe
AZ 85287-4501
USA.

Phone: (480) 965-8620
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