Copies of these General Articles and Nomenclatural Notes can be obtained free of charge from the Executive Secretary, The International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature, c/o The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, U.K. (e-mail: iczn@nhm.ac.uk).

 

Systema Naturae 250, Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France, 26–27 August 2008

Andrew Polaszek
Department of Entomology, Natural History Museum, London, U.K.
(former Executive Secretary, ICZN)

 This year, 2008, marks 250 years of zoological nomenclature, begun by Linnaeus with the publication of the 10th edition of Systema Naturae in 1758. To celebrate this anniversary, zoologists from around the world met in Paris for a two-day symposium as part of the 20th International Congress of Zoology. The purpose of the meeting was to address the history and development of zoological nomenclature and animal taxonomy, and to discuss the future of these disciplines in the light of emerging technologies that support biodiversity informatics.
 A particular highlight of the meeting was the presentation of the Sherborn Award, for services to biodiversity informatics, to former ICZN President Prof. Alessandro Minelli of the University of Padua. The award takes its name from Charles Davies Sherborn, author of Index Animalium, the monumental catalogue of animal names from 1758 to 1850. The award itself, in this first year of its presentation, took the form of a silver sculpture of the fish Howella sherborni (Norman) described by Sherborn’s biographer J.R. Norman. The sculpture was made by the eminent sculptor Juliet Simpson, and presented to Prof. Minelli by Prof. E.O. Wilson of Harvard University.
 The programme for the symposium contained a mix of historical accounts of animal nomenclature and taxonomy, moving on to the current issues in animal systematics, and focussing in particular on electronic publication of species descriptions and nomenclatural acts. Another highlight of the symposium was the presence of Linnaeus himself, played by Hans Odöö, who gave an excellent account of himself, reminding us all of his exceptional talents.

 The programme for the two-day meeting (presented by first author unless indicated by *) was as follows:

The Linnaean Ark – 250 years of animal names
Presentation of Sherborn award for services to biodiversity informatics (by E.O. Wilson)
Edward O. Wilson: The Linnaean Ark
David Quammen: Linnaeus – name giver. A passion for order (paper presented by Andrew Polaszek)
James Dobreff: Daniel Rolander’s Diarium Surinamicum and its insects
Hans Dieter Sues: Fossils and Linnaean classification
Gordon McGregor Reid: The naming of threatened animal and plant species – a matter of life and death
Quentin D. Wheeler: Linnaean classifications: from Ark to Battlestar

Current issues in animal nomenclature
Philippe Bouchet: Documenting marine megabiodiversity
Estelle Balian, Hendrik Segers, Christian Lévèque & Koen Martens*: Freshwater Animal Diversity Assessment – a project documenting biodiversity in continental aquatic ecosystems
Neal Evenhuis, Thomas Pape*, Adrian Pont, & Chris Thompson: Flying after Linnaeus: Dipteran names since Systema Naturae (1758)
Frank Bisby: The Catalogue of Life – an e-Science Systema Naturae for the future
Donat Agosti, Terry Catapano, Norman F. Johnson, Richard Pyle & Zhi-Qiang Zhang: 1758, Latin Binomen – 2008, e-Descriptions
Sandra Knapp & Debbie Wright: e-Publish or Perish
David Schindel & Scott Miller: Provisional nomenclature: The on-ramp to taxonomic names
David Patterson: Future taxonomy – bigger, better and faster
Simon Tillier: DNA barcoding as a tool to grasp the taxonomic diversity of life
James Hanken: The Encyclopedia of Life
Norman Johnson: Future taxonomy today: new tools applied to accelerate the taxonomic process
David Remsen: The All-Genera Index
Ellinor Michel & Andrew Polaszek: Linnaeus – Sherborn – ZooBank
Richard L. Pyle, Miguel Alonso-Zarazaga, Nina Bogutskaya, Philippe Bouchet, Denis Brothers, Daphne G. Fautin, Mark J. Grygier, R. Bruce Halliday, Izya M. Kerzhner, Maurice Kottelat, Frank-Thorsten Krell, Sven O. Kullander, Gerardo Lamas, Susan Lim, Shunsuke F. Mawatari, Alessandro Minelli, Peter K.L. Ng, Thomas Pape, La´szlo´ Papp, David J. Patterson, Gary Rosenberg, Pavel Štys, Jan van Tol & Zhi-Qiang Zhang. ZooBank: reviewing the first two years, and preparing for the next 250
Charles Godfray: Web taxonomy – the future or a distraction?
Alfried Vogler: 250 years: enough animal nomenclature
Benoit Dayrat: The Codes – is reconciliation possible?
Fredrik Ronquist: 250 years of Swedish taxonomy

 Without the support of the sponsors listed below, Systema Naturae 250 could not have happened. We are grateful to: the Natural History Museum, London; Global Biodiversity Information Facility; Encyclopedia of Life; Syngenta Bioline; Linnean Society of London; Taylor and Francis Group; Elsevier; Chester Zoo; Syncroscopy.

 The proceedings of Systema Naturae 250 will be published as a commemorative volume: ‘Systema Naturae 250 – the Linnaean Ark’ in 2009 by CRC Press.

 

 

Allotypes should be from the type series: a position paper for reinstating Recommendation 72A from the third edition of the Code that defines the term ‘allotype’

Jorge A. Santiago-Blay
Department of Paleobiology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, District of Columbia 20560, U.S.A.(e-mail: blayj@si.edu)

Brett C. Ratcliffe
Systematics Research Collections, W436 Nebraska Hall, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska 68588–0514, U.S.A. (e-mail: bratcliffe1@unl.edu)

Frank-T. Krell
Department of Zoology, Denver Museum of Nature & Science, 2001 Colorado Boulevard, Denver, Colorado 80205–5798, U.S.A. (e-mail: Frank.Krell@dmns.org)

Robert Anderson
Research Division, Canadian Museum of Nature, PO Box 3443, Station D, Ottawa, ON K1P 6P4, Canada (e-mail: randerson@mus-nature.ca)

Abstract. The purpose of this paper is to suggest reinstating the wording of the third edition of the Code for Recommendation 72A: ‘The term ‘allotype’ may be used to designate among paratypes a specimen of opposite sex to the holotype. Authors are recommended to avoid using the term ‘allotype’ for specimens other than paratypes.’ The Glossary in the next edition of the Code should change accordingly. This is to assure that allotypes always have unequivocal status as paratypes and, thus, are covered by Recommendation 75A as potential reserve name-bearers. Only type specimens should bear the root ‘–type’.

Introduction
 Non-name-bearing specimens of the original type series are often considered nomenclaturally irrelevant (e.g. Simpson, 1960; Blackwelder, 1967; Fricke, 1985), being merely of taxonomic interest indicating the species concept of the original author. However, the Code recommends considering paratypes or paralectotypes as the first choice if a neotype needs to be designated (Recommendation 75A). They are potential or reserve name-bearers (Smith, 1983) in case the original name-bearers are lost or destroyed. As such, they are potentially relevant for nomenclatural purposes. Although Recommendation 75A recognises this potential relevance of paratypes, the current Code is unclear about the status of allotypes, a frequently used term in taxonomic literature in groups with sexual dimorphism. It is defined in Recommendation 72A: ‘The term ‘‘allotype’’ may be used to indicate a specimen of opposite sex to the holotype’. This wording allows designation of allotypes subsequently to the original description and even from non-type material. According to the Glossary of the Code, the term allotype is not regulated by the Code, but Recommendation 72A is dedicated purely to allotypes and defines this term. Since allotype is a widely used term and covered by a Recommendation of the Code, its ambiguous definition and unclear status is undesirable. Defining allotype as a paratype of a different sex from the holotype would clarify its status as a paratype and, thus, as reserve name-bearer covered by Recommendation 75A.

History
 As originally proposed by Muttkowski (1910, p. 10) and occasionally adopted by others (e.g. Fernald, 1939; Viette, 1951; Gloyd, 1982; ICZN, 1999), an ‘allotype’ was considered to be the first specimen of the opposite sex from the holotype and was conceived as a useful tool for documenting sexual dimorphism. Banks & Caudell (1912) seem to be the first to have limited the use of the term ‘allotype’ as a paratype of the opposite sex from the holotype, thus from the original type series. This usage was promulgated by Durrant et al. (1921), Frizzell (1933), Mayr et al. (1953), Torre-Bueno (1962), Blackwelder (1967), ICZN (1985), and has been generally widely accepted amongst taxonomists (Smith, 1984).
 However, several authors, recognising the value of limiting the application of the term ‘allotype’ to a member of the original type series, have introduced new terms for specimens of the opposite sex designated or described after the original description: ‘neallotype’ (Talbot, 1921), ‘metallotype’ (Munro, 1957; Smith, 1983), ‘neoallotype’ (Séguy, 1967). Dechambre (2001), in an attempt to avoid using the inappropriate root ‘type’ for non-type material, proposed the term ‘alloréférent’. As is often the case for many new words coined for a special scientific use, none of these new terms have gained broad acceptance. Additionally, they are nomenclaturally irrelevant and misleading, since they do not refer to type material.
 The term allotype is not mentioned in the 1964 second edition of Code (ICZN, 1964). The 1985 third edition of the Code recommends (Rec. 72A) that ‘The term ‘allotype’ may be used to designate among paratypes a specimen of the opposite sex to the holotype’, and that ‘Authors are recommended to avoid using the term ‘allotype’ for specimens other than paratypes’. The 1999 fourth edition of the Code simply recommends (Rec. 72A) that the term ‘allotype’ may be used to indicate a specimen of opposite sex of the holotype. An important difference between the 1985 and 1999 Codes is that the term allotype is a paratype in the third edition and simply a specimen of the opposite sex (with no type status) in the fourth edition. By explicitly allowing the use of such a broadly defined ‘allotype’, it is possible for an author to designate, after the original description of the taxon in question, an allotype (or as called by some, a neoallotype) for the first representative of the opposite sex from the holotype. Examples of these are DeLong (1953) and DeLong & Martinson (1973) who described allotypes for previously described species of cicadellid leafhoppers; Brookhart & Muma (1981) who designated three ‘allotypes’ for previously described species of solifugids; Maes (1990) who designated six ‘allotypes’ for previously described species of stag beetles (Coleoptera: LUCANIDAE); Soula (1999, 2002) who designated 33 ‘neoallotypes’ in the genus Macraspis MacLeay, 1819 and 46 ‘neoallotypes’ in other genera of RUTELINAE (Coleoptera: SCARABAEIDAE); Alexis and Delpont (2001a, 2001b) who designated various ‘neoallotypes’ for species of CETONIINAE (Coleoptera: SCARABAEIDAE); Sanborn & Phillips (2004) who designated an ‘allotype’ to accompany a neotype of a cicada; and Özdikmen et al. (2007) who designated an ‘allotype’ for a leaf beetle (Coleoptera: CHRYSOMELIDAE) more than 30 years after its original description. Also, the term ‘alloréférent’ was used by Alexis & Delpont (2002) for a female paratype of a new species of cetoniine scarab they described and by Soula (2006) for previously described species of ruteline scarab beetles. Thus, the term ‘alloréférent’, even when used, is not being applied consistently. None of these authors violated the Code, because the term ‘allotype’ was not regulated by Articles of the Code but only by a Recommendation. Maes (1990) and Soula (1999) did not follow Recommendation 72A in force at the time. Clearly, this broad array of designations is inconsistent and confusing.

Proposal
 In order to promote stability and consistency in the use of terms containing the root ‘type’ for types, we suggest that the Commission consider for the fifth edition of the Code restricting the application of the widely used term ‘allotype’ to a specimen taken from the original type series and to return to the language of the third edition of the Code, to wit Recommendation 72A: ‘The term ‘allotype’ may be used to designate among paratypes a specimen of the opposite sex to the holotype. Authors are recommended to avoid using the term ‘allotype’ for specimens other than paratypes.’ The definition of allotype in the Glossary of the Code should be changed to: ‘A term for a designated specimen amongst the paratypes of the opposite sex to the holotype [Recommendation 72A].’ We further suggest that the terms ‘neoallotype’, ‘neallotype’ and ‘metallotype’ (or any other similarly intended word employing the root ‘–type’) not be used, since they denote a non-type specimen. Authors interested in keeping a record of important specimens subsequent to the type series, such as the first member of the opposite sex, are encouraged to deposit them, as ‘vouchers’, in well-curated, accessible collections as defined in Recommendation 72F.

Acknowledgements
 We are grateful to the following for valuable discussions and commentary (not all of whom agreed with our point of view): Victor Fet (Marshall University, Huntington, WV, U.S.A.), Lee Herman (American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY, U.S.A.), Carol Hotton (National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., U.S.A.), Michael S. Engel and Charles D. Michener (University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, U.S.A.), Paul Freytag (University of Kentucky, North Lexington, KY, U.S.A.), Rafael Jordana (University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain), Otto Krauss (Universität Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany), John T. Polhemus (Englewood, CO, U.S.A.), Michael Schmitt (Zoologisches Forschungsinstitut und Museum Alexander Koenig, Bonn, Germany), Chris Thompson (USDA, Washington, D.C., U.S.A.), Andrzej Warchalowski (Instytut Zoologiczny, Wroclaw, Poland) and Mick Webb (The Natural History Museum, London, U.K.).

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Comments on this proposal may be sent to the Commission Secretariat (iczn@nhm.ac.uk)