[Taxacom] New lizard species

[Stephen Thorpe]

>I see no characters, but how many Thorpian-defined characters can you see in this diagnosis Stephen?
I see no characters sensu Read, but one character sensu ICZN glossary:

character, n. 
Any attribute of organisms used for recognizing, differentiating, or classifying taxa
 
where 'attribute' is left undefined, so takes by default the least restrictive everyday English meaning
 
"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"
 
this is an attribute being used by the authors to classify their taxa - a particularly shoddy extrinsic attribute from a taxonomic perspective, but an attribute nonetheless...
 
as for your fixation on the use of the plural, it would clearly be absurd to require more than one character to define a taxon, so we can safely interpret it as 'character(s)', or 'character or characters'. Some things can be safely interpreted, others not ...
 
Stephen



________________________________
From: Geoffrey Read <gread at actrix.gen.nz>
To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Sent: Tue, 8 June, 2010 1:50:06 PM
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] New lizard species

If we are going to dice and slice the word meanings in 13.1.1 then how
about 'characters that are'. Gosh, that's a plural. If one character alone
sufficed for availability different wording would undoubtedly have been
used in the ICZN Article. Ergo, logically the code requires more than one
character to be present in the diagnosis. Otherwise the name is
unavailable.  See also recommendation 13A on differentiating which wants
"a *summary* of the characters".

I see no characters, but how many Thorpian-defined characters can you see
in this diagnosis Stephen?

"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"


Geoff

>>> On 7/06/2010 at 11:49 a.m., Stephen Thorpe
<stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz> wrote:


> Once again:
>
> 13.1.1. be accompanied by a description or definition that states in words
> characters that are purported to differentiate the taxon, or
>
> character, n.
> Any attribute of organisms used for recognizing, differentiating, or
> classifying taxa (ICZN Glossary)
>



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