(069) Recommendation for adding photographs of type specimens to the protologues of new names of taxa at the rank of species or below

Abstract

Article 7 of the Shenzhen Code (Turland & al. in Regnum Veg. 159. 2018), dealing with typification, ends with the Recommendation 7A.1, “It is strongly recommended that the material on which the name of a taxon is based, especially the holotype, be deposited in a public herbarium or other public collection with a policy of giving bona fide researchers access to deposited material, and that it be scrupulously conserved.” I propose to add a further Recommendation. “7B.1. It is strongly recommended that the protologue of the name of a new taxon at the rank of species or below include at least one photograph of the mounted holotype with its label.” To my mind, adding even the simplest photographs would improve the utility of type material for current and future researchers, not to mention Artificial Intelligence (machine reading, machine learning). It might also help improve the quality of labels. I thank John McNeill for his encouragement and Nicholas Turland for improving my wording.