Photography-based taxonomy is inadequate, unnecessary, and potentially harmful for biological sciences

Böhme, Wolfgang; Bogdanowicz, Wieslaw; Bockmann, Flávio A.; Boano, Giovanni; Blick, Theo; Birindelli, José; Biondo, Cibele; Bharti, Daizy; Berning, Björn; Bentlage, Bastian; Bennett, Daniel J.; Benine, Ricardo C.; Bauer, Franziska; Bauer, Aaron M.; Bates, Michael F.; Bastos-Silveira, Cristiane; Bärmann, Eva V.; Barber-James, Helen Margaret; Baldo, Diego; Bagley, Justin C.; Azevedo, Celso; Astúa, Diego; Artois, Tom J.; Arthofer, Wolfgang; Arroyave, Jairo; Arnaud, Henrard; Araujo, Paula Beatriz; Aquino, Pedro P.U.; Andreone, Franco; De Andrade, Marco Brandalise; Andrade, Marcelo C.; Ananjeva, Natalia; Do Amaral, Fabio Raposo; Alves, Maria Judite; Aleixo, Alexandre; Ahrens, Dirk; Aguiar, Jonas José Mendes; Aguiar, Antonio J.C.; Agosti, Donat; Agatha, Sabine; Agarwal, Ishan; Aescht, Erna; Adriano, Edson A.; Adler, Kraig; Alqarni, Abdulaziz S.; Abdala, Cristian Simón; Gutiérrez, Eliécer E.; Ceríaco, Luis M.P.; Ceriaco, Luis M. P.; Gutierrez, Eliecer E.; Dubois, Alain

Abstract

The question whether taxonomic descriptions naming new animal species without type specimen(s) deposited in collections should be accepted for publication by scientific journals and allowed by the Code has already been discussed in Zootaxa (Dubois & Nemésio 2007; Donegan 2008, 2009; Nemésio 2009a–b; Dubois 2009; Gentile & Snell 2009; Minelli 2009; Cianferoni & Bartolozzi 2016; Amorim et al. 2016). This question was again raised in a letter supported by 35 signatories published in the journal Nature (Pape et al. 2016) on 15 September 2016. On 25 September 2016, the following rebuttal (strictly limited to 300 words as per the editorial rules of Nature) was submitted to Nature, which on 18 October 2016 refused to publish it. As we think this problem is a very important one for zoological taxonomy, this text is published here exactly as submitted to Nature, followed by the list of the 493 taxonomists and collection-based researchers who signed it in the short time span from 20 September to 6 October 2016.

Citation

Böhme, W., Bogdanowicz, W., Bockmann, F. A., Boano, G., Blick, T., Birindelli, J., …Dubois, A. (2016). Photography-based taxonomy is inadequate, unnecessary, and potentially harmful for biological sciences. Zootaxa, 4196(3), 435-445. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4196.3.9

• Journal Article Type: Letter
• Acceptance Date: Nov 4, 2016
• Online Publication Date: Nov 23, 2016
• Publication Date: Nov 23, 2016
• Deposit Date: Sep 12, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 13, 2018
• Journal: Zootaxa
• Print ISSN: 1175-5334
• Electronic ISSN: 1175-5334
• Publisher: Magnolia Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 4196
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 435-445
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4196.3.9
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/1039807
• Publisher URL: https://biotaxa.org/Zootaxa/article/view/zootaxa.4196.3.9/24874