[Taxacom] New lizard species

[Stephen Thorpe]

alas, Bob, I think it is you who have missed the point! I agree wholeheartedly with just about everything you have said, BUT:
the new gecko names are Code compliant - they designate (whole specimens as) holotypes and offer a diagnosis which purports to differentiate the taxa.
I AGREE that they should not have named these lineages as new species - but they have done so, and they have done so in a Code compliant way. You can choose to reject their taxonomy, but not their nomenclature. There are three elements here: phylogeography, taxonomy, and nomenclature. They have contributed something to our understanding of the first, but unfortunately formalised it in taxonomic terms (a mistake in both our opinions), but you can't fault them on nomenclatural grounds, because they are in full compliance ...

Stephen




________________________________
From: Bob Mesibov <mesibov at southcom.com.au>
To: Stephen Thorpe <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>
Cc: jfmate at hotmail.com; TAXACOM <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
Sent: Tue, 8 June, 2010 11:52:41 AM
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] New lizard species

Brit-bashing? No, just tongue-in-cheek, like my satirical take on pompous editors.

But I feel strongly that your 'taxonomy in the molecular age' should be old-style taxonomy reinforced and extended with molecular results, not Leache-Fujita style *replacement* of old-style taxonomy with something completely unusable.

Making the key point a 3rd time: Leache and Fujita have contributed something to our understanding of lizard evolution, and nothing at all to lizard taxonomy. If they were so determined to name 3 new species they should have investigated those entities properly and published taxonomic results properly. What they did is not taxonomy at all, in the molecular age or at any other time.
-- 
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
03 64371195; 61 3 64371195
Webpage: http://www.qvmag.tas.gov.au/mesibov.html