[Taxacom] Plant nomenclature query

[Fautin, Daphne G.]

Alas, it happens all too frequently with organisms covered by the zoological code, too.  In my database, I have noted discrepancies between what was published and what I could find.  There are no consequences in the zoological code for an accident that results in non-deposition or even (purposeful) failure to deposit -- the publication is all that is required.  (In my case, it was a paratype, which has no nomenclatural standing, but when I got to the museum to which it had been sent, it was not there, and the curator to whom I sent it asserted he had no knowledge of it!).  Zoologists do not have isotypes, so I cannot respond to that, but under the zoological code, only in the original description can a holotype be designated, so there can be no such thing as a "new" holotype.

Sincerely,
Daphne

Daphne G. Fautin
Professor, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Curator, Natural History Museum (Biodiversity Institute)
University of Kansas
1200 Sunnyside Avenue
Lawrence, Kansas 66045 USA

telephone 1-785-864-3062
fax 1-785-864-5321
skype user name daphne.fautin
evo user name fautin
website: invertebratezoology.biodiversity.ku.edu/home
cv: www.nhm.ku.edu/inverts/daphne.html

    database of hexacorals, including sea anemones
       newest version released 2 January 2013
hercules.kgs.ku.edu/Hexacoral/Anemone2/index.cfm

________________________________________
From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu [taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] on behalf of Matt Buys [Matt.Buys at scionresearch.com]
Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2014 8:05 PM
To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: [Taxacom] Plant nomenclature query

Hi.

An author has published a new species and cities a holotype deposited in one herbarium, and a host of isotypes deposited in other herbaria.  It turns out the holotype specimen was never deposited.  Only some of the isotypes have been deposited. What to do now?  Would one of the isotypes become the holotype by default, do you have to officially designate one isotype as the "new" holotype, etc.?

Yours

M@

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