Time to update taxonomy?

[christian thompson]

DNA taxonomy is wonderful, if you believe everything you read in NATURE
et cetera. A week ago it proved that species can learn to fly again
after they lost their wings!

But what about poor Jim Reveal with his strange bird in Montrose,
Colorado?

Even if the Fish & Wildlife as well as the state of Colorado let him
have a permit to collect that strange bird, would its DNA really solve
the problem any better that the responses he got here on TAXCOM? I doubt
it. Nature is diversity and there will always be creatures whose
identity can't be clearly resolved by any character system.

Our real problem remains that administrators read NATURE and believe
it, so what we TAXCOM readers say become irrelevant.

Yes, it is Friday again.







F. Christian Thompson
Systematic Entomology Lab., USDA
c/o Smithsonian Institution
MRC-0169 NHB
PO Box 37012
Washington, DC 20013-7012
(202) 382-1800 voice
(202) 786-9422 FAX
cthompso at sel.barc.usda.gov e-mail
www.diptera.org  web site