[Taxacom] shortest description

[Dan Lahr]

Thanks Francisco, this is very helpful. From your information, I can
infer that the problem usually lies in the shorter descriptions:

> Examples for unaccepted descriptions:
> Present in Suriname; can be seen in autumn; occurs only in the Wenlockian
> geological horizon; beautiful; resembles very much species B and C; size
> like in species B of the same genus; colour differs from species B; can be
> distinguished very easily from species B by its very well recognisable
> morphological characters.

I'm assuming you mean any of the above cases individually. As a
protistologist, my problem has a slightly different twist. Given the
different technologies and microscope power, it is not unusual to find
descriptions where for instance, one of the characters is:

"absence of nucleus"

Of course all eukaryotes have nuclei, the descriptors were probably
just unable to see the nucleus, and many of them acually explicitly
state something in the lines of "I am unable to identify a nucleus".
But this is rarely listed as the sole defining characteristic, so I'm
guessing that other informative characters in the description would
possibly make the name valid, would that be a reasonable conclusion
under the code?

Thanks,

dan


On Fri, Feb 25, 2011 at 4:23 PM, Francisco Welter-Schultes
<fwelter at gwdg.de> wrote:
> I understood that the term "fine" was used in the sense of "beautiful",
> not in the sense of "thin".
>
>> An honest question:
>>
>> Why exactly can L. bulla Benson 1836 be considered nomen nudum? Or any
>> name for that matter, I think Richard zander makes a good point about
>> where can you draw the line.
>>
>> I agree with the intepretation of this particular name being
>> meaningless, but there must be a more objective parameter.
>
> I think it is helpful that the ICZN Code provides constraints how to
> interprete "description" in Art. 12.3.
>
> "12.3. Exclusions. The mention of any of the following does not in itself
> constitute a description, definition, or indication: a vernacular name,
> locality, geological horizon, host, label, or specimen."
>
> Excluding "locality" is much, because we know today that in many locally
> distributed taxa an accurate locality can much more useful than a long
> description which does not give the taxonomically important feature. This
> makes the point that the expression "description to denote a taxon" is
> taken serious in the Code.
>
> In my lectures for the AnimalBase team I usually give the following
> examples, which include also non-scientific statements and empty speech
> bubbles:
>
> Examples for unaccepted descriptions:
> Present in Suriname; can be seen in autumn; occurs only in the Wenlockian
> geological horizon; beautiful; resembles very much species B and C; size
> like in species B of the same genus; colour differs from species B; can be
> distinguished very easily from species B by its very well recognisable
> morphological characters.
> And also:
> Differs from species B by differential DNA; molecular distance so large
> from species B that it must be considered a different species.
>
> In an earlier thread in the [iczn-list] mailing list the line was drawn
> shortly below here:
> "size ranges at the lower margin of that of species B."
>
> The majority in that mailing list did not regard this as a description to
> denote a taxon. Initially I had said, such a statement could refer to a
> different average size and as such denote a taxon. This view was not
> supported by the vast majority of the members of that list. So it seems
> that common consensus draws the line exactly between that statement and
> "smaller" (which would denote the taxon). I do not feel bad with this
> interpretation. Could be included in the next Code edition.
>
> Francisco
>
>
>



-- 
Daniel Lahr
-------------------------------------------------
PhD candidate
Organismic and Evolutionary Biology
U Massachusetts- Amherst
319 Morrill Science Center, Amherst
Amherst, MA 01003
413-585-3881