Taxacom: Subspecies PROBABLY described

[Douglas Yanega]

On 2/23/22 8:31 AM, Mikhail Daneliya via Taxacom wrote:
> Dear colleagues,
>
> I cannot decide about the status of a mysid crustacean subspecies. Maybe
> you can help.
>
> Bacescu (1981) suggested that Boreomysis inermis from the Peru-Chile Trench
> "probably" belongs to a separate subspecies B.i.peruana. He provided
> characters and illustrations, and mentioned "n.ssp." after the name, but
> did not designate any types.
>
> This "probably" confuses me.
>
> What do you think about the availability here?

This is very similar to a recent publication involving carabid beetles, 
with two "proposed" new subspecies names in the text, and a recent 
bumblebee paper with a "proposed" new species name in the text. Without 
explicit type designations, none of these names are available. That this 
seems to be happening so often suggests that there are a lot of editors 
and reviewers that are unfamiliar with the Code. At the very least, if a 
person intends to SUGGEST that something MIGHT be a taxon but is not 
prepared to formally describe it, someone needs to discourage them from 
proposing a name for it, and suggest instead to just give it an 
arbitrary designation like "subspecies X", or "subspecies 3", that can't 
be mistaken for a name.

Peace,

-- 
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)
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