[Taxacom] New lizard species

[Doug Yanega]

Jason Mate wrote:

>Considering how much e-ink has been poured in the last few days 
>maybe it it would have been more constructive to send a nicely 
>worded letter to the journal and the authors suggesting that they 
>publish an addendum in the next issue that is more code compliant. 
>And in addition to this a proposal to the ICZN to get on with the 
>times and consider that many descriptions may not be morphologically 
>based so less ambiguity would be grand. Just a thought.

Speaking as someone who has been witnessing how the ICZN operates 
from within: I think you will find it nearly impossible to convince 
the ICZN as a whole that we can do away with type specimens, and 
*visible* species diagnostics.

Speaking as an ICZN Commissioner who works closely with a number of 
molecular researchers, I know for a fact that it is not uncommon for 
an *incorrect* gene sequence to get into print, through a variety of 
problems: (1) the sequence itself is correct, but is of an organism 
other than the one actually being described, and therefore 
misassociated (2) the sequence output came back to the researcher 
with errors, which were accepted uncritically (and which can be 
revealed by doing reverse transcription as a control) and put into 
print (3) the errors can be introduced somewhere in the editorial 
process between the "output from the sequencer" stage to the printing 
stage. As such, if you make a sequence the "holotype", or even just 
the diagnostic, you run a very significant risk of screwing things up 
in ways that having a type specimen would preclude. The mandate of 
the ICZN is to help establish rules that promote stability of 
nomenclature, and basing a name on a published gene sequence rather 
than a physical specimen is NOT going to promote stability. It is 
ultimately little different from accepting a drawing of an organism 
as the holotype; a practice we tolerate only in retrospect, and which 
has the same fundamental problem: it is far too easy for it NOT to be 
accurate or unambiguous.

Finally, the phrase "more code compliant" is a little misleading, 
really - a description is either code-compliant, or it is not. These 
descriptions do not appear to be code compliant, so the authors need 
to produce descriptions which *are* code compliant, if they want 
people to recognize their taxa - which will take their dates of 
publication from the dates of the code-compliant descriptions. Right 
now, they're nomina nuda, dangling in limbo.

Sincerely,
-- 

Doug Yanega        Dept. of Entomology         Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0314        skype: dyanega
phone: (951) 827-4315 (standard disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
              http://cache.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html
   "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
         is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82