[Taxacom] taxonomic "vandalism?"

[Michael A. Ivie]

We hear massive diatribes about an Australian herpetologist naming 
species that others are wanting to name.  However, the common thread is 
that this is made possible by people releasing data that allow these 
descriptions before they actually do the work of describing the 
species.  There is a perfect example of this today, in the news release at

<https://www.newscientist.com/article/2149587-we-just-found-nineteen-new-species-of-gecko-in-one-tiny-area/?campaign_id=RSS%7CNSNS%7C2017-GLOBAL-AppleFeedex&utm_campaign=AppleFeedex&utm_medium=RSS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_term=Autofeed>

In this piece there are beautiful photos of four new species of geckos 
who are identified as such, with a locality and no descriptions.  At the 
bottom of the story it says "The formal descriptions will appear intwo 
papers being published over the coming weeks 
<http://www.fauna-flora.org/news/fifteen-new-gecko-species-discovered-in-myanmar/>."  
I assume that someone who publishes his own journal could do it faster 
than that?

Is it not simply hubris to put out such a story before the species are 
formally described?  And, if they do that and then get scooped, knowing 
there are people (or person) out there alleged to do such things, can 
they be outraged if it happens?

Mike

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__________________________________________________

Michael A. Ivie, Ph.D., F.R.E.S.

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