Taxacom: Abbreviations in species descriptions

[lynn]

Peter,
Surely the full description of the character should be given on first usage and then the abbreviation indicated is used subsequently. This should avoid any confusion. Peters “Dictionary of Herpetology” seems to be the standard reference for herpetological terms but doesn’t seem to include any of the abbreviations you mention. 
Lynn

> On 25 May 2022, at 23:32, Peter Uetz via Taxacom <taxacom at lists.ku.edu> wrote:
> 
> 
> A lot of recent species descriptions, at least in reptiles, use a variety of abbreviations.
> I wonder how common that is in other taxonomic groups, and more importantly, if there are any (published) standards for such abbreviations.
> 
> For instance, in reptiles, common abbreviations include SVL (for snout-vent length) but there seems only limited agreement on others, 
> e.g. for snout length people have used SL or SnL, or more precisely eye-to-snout-distance (ESD) = snout-to-eye-distance (SE), etc.
> Of course, SL can actually can also mean other things, such as supralabial scale (count) etc.
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> 
> ————————————————————————————————————
> Peter Uetz
> Center for Biological Data Science
> Virginia Commonwealth University
> Richmond, VA 23284
> USA
> 
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