[Taxacom] Drosophila melanogaster name change?

[Don.Colless at csiro.au]

I simply reject the utility of a genus name which cannot be used when identifying females, even if here are hundreds of species. There need be no systematic problems; the very interesting taxa based on male terminalia can be placed as subgenera, which is what they are for. This leaves the science intact and no problems when making important identifications, which, let us remember, require a binomial.

Donald H. Colless
CSIRO Div of Entomology
GPO Box 1700
Canberra 2601
don.colless at csiro.au
tuz li munz est miens envirun

________________________________________
From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu [taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Kim van der Linde [kim at kimvdlinde.com]
Sent: 16 April 2010 22:59
To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Drosophila melanogaster name change?

On 4/16/2010 1:24 AM, Don.Colless at csiro.au wrote:
>
> I just have to say that if one has to extract, prepare, etc., the
> male genitalia to place as fly in a genus, then it's a lousy genus -
> and what about all the poor females, doomed to languish just as
> "drosophilids".

Ok, you you propose to lump the genera with in the family Drosophilidae
that are based on genitalia characteristics alone? That would be a
revolution......

Kim

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