[Taxacom] (no subject)

[John Grehan]

I would agree with Richard, publish a corrected list. Let others decide
between them. You might communicate to the author that you would have been
happy to give feedback etc if approached and see what the response is. Its
commonplace enough in biogeography not to be communicated with even when
publishing extensively on a relevant area or group, so not surprising with
other venues. By comparison, I am preparing a list for a group for which I
did not make formal invitation to everyone who has worked on some aspect of
the taxonomy, although I did make it fairly widely known that I was working
on the project and some colleagues asked if they could contribute and to
which I agreed.

John Grehan

On Sun, Feb 10, 2019 at 5:27 PM Anthony Gill <gill.anthony at gmail.com> wrote:

> As by far the most active taxonomist on a family of fishes, I was very
> surprised to see that someone else had just published a checklist of the
> species in the family. My research on the family spans a little over 30
> years activity, and includes revisionary work on all but one of the six
> subfamilies. I have also named about one-third of the known species in the
> family. In contrast, the checklist compiler has not published a single
> paper on the family, and appears to have limited knowledge of the family.
> One might think it respectful to at least inform me that he was working on
> the group, or perhaps to invite collaboration. At the very least, it would
> seem important that I peer reviewed his checklist. None of those things
> happened. Not surprisingly, he introduces a range of errors, and
> perpetuates a few others. As far as I can see, the taxonomic information
> was lifted from publications (mostly mine - his single included graphic is
> also remarkably similar to one I published) and databases (such as
> Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes), and (aside from one dubious spelling
> change, and various misinterpretations of published information), there is
> nothing new in the publication. Yet, if my understanding is correct, this
> publication is intended as THE checklist for the family.
>
> I'm curious to hear whether other taxonomists have encountered similar
> problems. I've seen similar regional checklists that appear to be simply
> compiled from museum databases with little if  any original collecting of
> samples or examination of specimens, but this is the first time I've seen a
> non-specialist compile a taxonomic checklist. I really hope this isn't
> commonplace.
>
> Tony
> --
> Dr Anthony C. Gill
> Natural History Curator
> A12 Macleay Museum
> University of Sydney
> NSW 2006
> Australia.
>
> Ph. +61 02 9036 6499
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