[Taxacom] veracity of figures

[Stephen Thorpe]

the main trouble with this, I suggest is that the numbers, for example,

Coleoptera  28070 350001 26566  10176

are meaningless without having it all fleshed out and fully referenced/sourced 
(as on Wikispecies, for example)

so "the cart is pulling the donkey" - we must flesh it all out first and THEN 
total up the numbers, NOT start with the numbers ...

the references are by far the most important thing, but Joel's catalog doesn't 
provide any detail on them. This leads to confusion - I have seen the same taxa 
listed (sometimes as the same name, sometimes as synonyms) under different 
families, etc.

Stephen


________________________________
From: Joel Hallan <joelhallan at hotmail.com>
To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Sent: Wed, 4 August, 2010 3:04:58 PM
Subject: [Taxacom] veracity of figures


I published a document on the web about 7 years ago at:

http://insects.tamu.edu/research/collection/hallan/0SYNOPT1.htm

It is a synopsis down to the level of order, both fossil and recent.  The genera 
are based on data in a database and the species come from a database or 
estimates given by specialists for those groups.  There are some attached 
documents at the end of it that give more information.

There are about 2500 orders.  25,000 families.

Joel Hallan
Austin, Texas                         
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