Taxacom: Minimalist revision of Mesochorus Gravenhorst, 1829

[Carlos Alberto Martínez Muñoz]

Dear Taxacomers,
For your enjoyment, here is the latest episode of the Meierotto *et al.*
(2019) saga, published six days ago, on August 24, 2023:
Sharkey *et al*. (2023): Minimalist revision of *Mesochorus* Gravenhorst,
1829 (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae: Mesochorinae) from Área de Conservación
Guanacaste, Costa Rica, with 158 new species and host records for 129
species. *Revista de Biología Tropical*,  71 (S2): 1-174.
https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdoi.org%2F10.15517%2Frev.biol.trop..v71iS2.2023&data=05%7C01%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7Ce9ac165b0f564cf305a908dba93091df%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C638289798306221383%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=bd58XiIJCNLzUpDzA9wwHItXw4nSYjTILjCYuD0fc5I%3D&reserved=0

You will enjoy reading through the logical fallacies in the introduction.
But more importantly, this paper contains what I told you and warned you
would happen, since the Meierotto *et al.* (2019) paper, if you failed to
act swiftly and properly. Now it is here. Read:
"Dasch (1974) treated a very small proportion of ACG *Mesochorus* species,
therefore few synonyms will be generated in our current effort which does
not attempt to match his names with Costa Rican specimens."
There you have a primarily morphological system finally openly hijacked by
a parallel taxonomic system which wants to use the naming rules of the
current system for convenience.
"In other words, it is likely that we are generating two or three synonyms
(0.23 x 10) of these Dasch species."
So, a complete disregard for priority and open acceptance of synonym
creation, as I warned four years ago. When things like this can go through
and get published, even when they threaten universality and stability, then
you realize that we don't need a ZooCode anymore. Given that the authors,
reviewers, and editor accepted 23% synonym creation as good, then all is
set to completely overwrite the current morphological system and names, as
the 2 million species described versus 10 million species estimate is just
20%. If we estimate a total of 80 or 100 million species, then creating 2
million synonyms for the existing names goes down to a "negligible" 2%
synonymy threshold. Completely acceptable, isn't it?

To the commissioners who have tolerated this, because of their conflict of
values (not of interest) based on the incorrect assumption that species
need scientific names to be assessed and protected: anyone that has read
through the IUCN Red List methodology knows that this is not true, and
there are countries with legislation in place to protect species even if
they don't have scientific names. You better update yourselves.

By the way, at least one of the species has two original spellings, *Mesochorus
dotres* (which should be declared an incorrect original spelling) and
*Mesochorus
dostres* (the supposedly correct spelling).

Now I will just sit here and contemplate the devastation.

Am I forgetting to emphasise something? Ah, yes: "I told you".

Yours in horror,
Carlos Martínez