Abstract
The fears expressed by Santos et al. (2016) that description of typeless species (new species described based on field photographs) can be fatal for the practice of taxonomy which will succumb to an uncontrollable stream of “species of questionable delimitation” are, in our opinion, exaggerated. The Code already protects taxonomic practice from subjectivity quite well by limiting opportunities for descriptions of new species based on field photos by rigid requirements, and only skilled taxonomists with extensive knowledge of a group are capable of fulfilling them. If a taxonomist has omitted to compare the new typeless species with the known species externally similar to it, the latter cannot be diagnosed and its name in that case becomes nomen nudum. Typeless species can coincide with species described earlier, but can represent a new species differing in internal features. To describe typeless species without infringement of Article 13.1 a taxonomist should compare this species to all related and similar species described earlier.
Highlights
In 2015, Marshall and Evenhuis published a description of a new African species Marleyimyia xylocopae (Diptera, Bombyliidae), which was based on a photograph taken in the field
The publication of Marshall and Evenhuis (2015) has been critically analyzed by a collective of authors (Santos et al 2016, p. 513), who have concluded that “the idea of associating names with beautiful species of questionable delimitation based only on photographs may be highly damaging to the practice of taxonomy” that “adjustments and corrections to the ICZN (Anonymous 1999; further referred to as the Code, or ICZN) especially to Article 73.1.4, are necessary and urgent
That means that if a taxonomist had missed one or several known species in his differential diagnosis for a new species, the Code does not see any nomenclatural infringements. If among these missed species there was a species which does not differ from a new species C in the characteristics used, the consequences will be different for the practice of description of a species based on photograph, vs. the traditional practice of description of a species with a fixed specimen as a holotype
Summary
Academic editor: A. Minelli | Received 27 October 2016 | Accepted 2 March 2017 | Published 23 August 2017 http://zoobank.org/AAD7E722-4775-43D2-94F0-209C3A75B74F Citation: Shatalkin AI, Galinskaya TV (2017) A commentary on the practice of using the so-called typeless species. ZooKeys 693: 129–139. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.693.10945
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