Taxacom: Phassodes Vanuatu

[John Grehan]

To refer once again to the problem/impossibility of sending a moth specimen
out of Vanuatu for a full morphological description, I was asked by my
colleague about how much could be done with a description using DNA. I
recall, I think, that some taxonomists have named new species solely on
DNA, and I would NOT be interested to do that. But given that we have a
specimen in Vanuatu that could serve as a type, and we have a photo of
another specimen that gives a good representation of the wing pattern and
some other visible features (that definitively place it in the correct
genus), I was wondering about the acceptability of naming a news species if
we were able to send out a leg sample for DNA analysis that resulted in a
sufficiently large difference from some other named Phassodes (in this case
from Fiji) that there would be pretty much no doubt of the Vanuatu moth
being different. Just trying to make the best of a bad situation. I look
forward to any feedback.

John Grehan

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