[Taxacom] do you use species descriptions?

[Andy Deans]

I guess a perhaps somewhat loaded follow-up question, related to your response, Fred, would be: How many taxonomists actually read or use original descriptions? 

Most of the species I work on (Hymenoptera: Evaniidae) were described ante-1911, in French and German - languages I struggle to accurately interpret. When I do translate the descriptions they are relatively uninformative or even inaccurate, especially when I can simply borrow the type specimens and observe them directly. So I am now in the habit of largely ignoring the original description, in favor of direct observation and imaging. Several colleagues of mine have similar habits.

Another colleague, however, spends *hours* reading the original descriptions of his taxon of interest - the species of which were mostly described post-1950.

Maybe species descriptions have improved over time, but how many of you regularly use descriptions, even "modern" ones, to confirm determinations or otherwise understand the species?

Just curious. For the record I *strongly* believe that textual descriptions are critical to the taxonomic process. Thanks for the replies so far,
Andy


On Feb 24, 2011, at 12:36 PM, Frederick W. Schueler wrote:

> On 2/24/2011 11:55 AM, Robin Leech wrote:
> 
>> Try ants.  Will send you something of interest.
> 
> * that reminds me of Bill Brown once commenting on descriptions of Ants 
> that included "eyes black, legs six" which are characters of higher taxa 
> rather than of the species. A quality check on these long descriptions 
> would be the proportion of the characters which are invariable in a 
> higher taxon of which it is a member.
> 
> fred.
> =============================================
>> 
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Andy Deans"<andy_deans at ncsu.edu>
>> To:<taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
>> Sent: Thursday, February 24, 2011 9:14 AM
>> Subject: [Taxacom] loooongest species description?
>> 
>> 
>>> Hi all,
>>> 
>>> What are your candidates for the longest species description? I'm
>>> especially interested in descriptions that have the highest number of
>>> *anatomical attributes* described, as opposed to behavioral, ecological,
>>> or other characters. Any thoughts?
>>> 
>>> My quick and dirty examination of recent Hymenoptera descriptions yields
>>> an average of 42 or so morphological characters per description. For the
>>> purposes of this exercise I am lumping the diagnosis and description
>>> together. Anyone know of a description that is hundreds of characters long
>>> and takes up dozens of pages?
>>> 
>>> It'd would be fun to see it!
>>> Just curious,
>>> Andy
>>> 
>>> Andrew R. Deans
>>> Department of Entomology
>>> North Carolina State University
>>> Campus Box 7613
>>> 2301 Gardner Hall
>>> Raleigh, NC USA 27695-7613
>>> 
>>> phone: +1 (919) 515-2833
>>> fax: +1 (919) 515-7746
>>> skype: ardeans
>>> http://deanslab.org/
>>> 
>>> 
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>> 
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> 
> -- 
> 
> fred schueler
> ------------------------------------------------------------
>          Frederick W. Schueler & Aleta Karstad
> Bishops Mills Natural History Centre - http://pinicola.ca/bmnhc.htm
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Andrew R. Deans
Department of Entomology
North Carolina State University
Campus Box 7613
2301 Gardner Hall
Raleigh, NC USA 27695-7613

phone: +1 (919) 515-2833
fax: +1 (919) 515-7746
skype: ardeans
http://deanslab.org/