[Taxacom] When electing a neotype, how to define the other gender

[Doug Yanega]

On 9/28/13 11:28 AM, Stuart Longhorn wrote:
> I'm just reviewing a study where the original single male type is lost.
> >From other museum material (collected elsewhere later than the original male) they elect another male specimen as neotype. Then from an even later female specimen (again collected elsewhere), they elect a female as paratype.
> First, i think this usage of paratype is wrong, do you agree?Second, I think the female could correctly be referred to as allotype - but is that correct?Or does an allotype have to be part of the original type series (e.g. an actual paratype).
> If the female is neither a paratype or allotype, is there no concise term to refer to the first described female?[i accept that often it is insecure that the female actually matches the male, though here it is certain]
(1) Paratypes are any indicated specimens from an original type series 
other than the holotype. Since there is no type series for this taxon, 
it is impossible for there to be any paratypes. The ICZN does not 
formally recognize "allotypes" - they are simply a paratype that happens 
to be of the opposite sex of the holotype, with no status different from 
any other paratype.
(2) Please review the Code Art. 75.3 to see that ALL of the necessary 
conditions for neotype designation have been met. If the authors 
couldn't even figure out what a paratype is, I would not trust them to 
have ever read the Code, therefore making it unlikely they have 
fulfilled all the necessary criteria.

Sincerely,

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