Taxacom: [KU SUSPECT SPAM] Re: replacing un-sequenceable types (was Re: Minimalist revision of Mesochorus)

[Andrew Whittington]

Well put Doug.

Furthermore, not only would the Type collections be worthless, but so would all the taxonomic effort of two hundred years of naming and describing specimens be rendered worthless. All this to simply to accommodate sequencing that in ten- or twenty-years time may prove to be disregarded as techniques move on (we have witnessed this in forensic science - cf the "Innocence Project"). Once the status of the types as name-bearers is lost, these are lost forever

>(i.e. it is considered "lost" for nomenclature and remains a historical specimen without name-bearing value)".

The proposal effectively destabilises taxonomy - we would end up with revisions (already published) providing identification keys to names that are no longer supported by a voucher (the Type) and hence no longer useful.

As an entomologist who spends hours identifying specimens from morphological features using keys and expert revisions and who cannot afford molecular sequencing, the provision of a diagnosis that states the ATCG barcode is particularly useless. And herein lies the real issue - the diagnosis and the description should not only contain words, but it should be in grammatically structured language to be interpreted to aid identification of other specimens - otherwise, what is the point. Yes, it would be wonderful to fill GENBANK with every plausible bar code, but in the job I do, it has no place at all. I can look up the diagnosis of the insects I work on in the latest revision and make an identification, but I cannot look up the sequence in GENBANK and do the same (in fact, I can't do much with it at all).

Kind regards,
Andrew

====o0o====​
Andrew E Whittington
Consultant Entomologist, PhD, FRES MCSFS
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"Taxonomy does not need quick publications, it needs serious and solid ones.”
Dubois, A., Bour, R. & Ohler, A. (2015)