Taxacom: museum access

[David Campbell]

While curating a collection, my brother discovered the head of the type
specimen of a caecilian.  Contact with the museum housing the type revealed
that the borrower had substituted a soap carving of the head in order to
keep studying the skull beyond the deadline to return it.  And it is
discouraging to go to a museum and find a note that the specimen was loaned
out over a decade ago to someone who is now dead.  Some taxonomists do give
museums some justification for being cautious.  I have no information about
the particular incident John mentions, though.

On Tue, Apr 15, 2025 at 6:34?PM John Grehan via Taxacom <
taxacom at lists.ku.edu> wrote:

> One of the vivotal foundations of taxonomy is the ability to verify or
> falsify based on voucher material. I understand that this condition is what
> establishes taxonomy as a science. Naturally access to specimens is not
> always feasible, but in principle is available given sufficient resources
> (e.g. to travel to a collection). One ehars occasionally of direct
> examination being denied, perhaps in some cases justified, others perhaps
> not. So it came to my attention in a 2014 paper "Life-history evolution and
> mitogenomic phylogeny of caecilian
>  amphibians" published in Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 73 (2014)
> 177?189 (accessed at   Life_history_evolution_and_mitogenomic_p.pdf ) the
> following statement:
>
> "Both specimens of Gymnopis included in this study (MVZ 171331 and MVZ
> 179536) are listed as G. multiplicata in the catalogue of the Museum of
> Vertebrate Zoology (University of California, Berkeley, USA) where they are
> deposited. We were denied access to, and thus unable to examine, the
> vouchers to re-evaluate their taxonomic assignment.
>
> This was 10 years ago, but wonder if anyone has insight to this? Just
> curious.
>
> John Grehan
>
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-- 
Dr. David Campbell
Professor, Geology
Department of Natural Sciences
110 S Main St, #7270
Gardner-Webb University
Boiling Springs NC 28017