A recent modification of Article 8.5 of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) has allowed electronic publications of new species after 2011.
However, Article 8.5 includes several precise requirements for the paper to be considered “published”. In other words, when a new species is described is a paper that does not fulfill these precise criteria, the paper is not published according to the ICZN and the name of the species is unavailable. The species name is not valid and cannot be used in the scientific literature.
Our attention was recently drawn to such a case concerning three invalid species, and we discussed it in a recent paper (the first part of the paper is a standard description; the discussion about the nomenclatural validity is at the end, page 7).
I would be interested to know if similar cases have been reported in other areas of zoology (note: this does no concern Botanical Nomenclature).
If you know other cases, I suggest to report them here – please read carefully ICZN Article 8.5 first.
Article Pseudorhabdosynochus regius n. sp. (Monogenea, Diplectanidae...
Dear Jean-Lou:
In ichthyology, this happens again and again; it even happened with two of my own papers. The problem is the required ZooBank registration; not all journals are aware of this ruling, and some publish names without the required registration number. In 2014, there were at least 30 cases of invalid fish names in electronic papers.
For the Catalog of Fishes project, we closely follow new publications in our field, assisted by the 'World of Fishes' project. When we become aware of an electronic paper including new taxa descriptions without the required ZooBank registration, we immediately contact the author. Publications are treated as published and names as available when all the criteria of the Code are fulfilled, i.e. the ZooBank registration number is published, which may mean that the journal either publishes a corrected version, or an erratum with the required data.
Article 8.5 of the Code frequently causes problems. The problem is not only caused by authors, but also by journal editors, who are often not fully aware of the requirements of the Code, as they are often no taxonomists. There is also a question who registeres the publication and the taxon, and when. Usually, we should only register a paper and a name when the paper is accepted for publication. However, often a paper is accepted and immediately posted in the web, so that there is a very short timespan for registering publication and name; the author may believe that the editor registers, or simply forgets to register the name, while the editor leaves the responsibility to the author. Also, the accepted version usually does not yet include the registration number, as registration occurs later, so the accepted version has to be subsequently modified.
Raising awareness is certainly a good idea. Also, journals need standardised procedures how to deal with ZooBank registrations of new taxa descriptions.
With best wishes,
Ron
Dear Ron,
Thank you for this input. Thirty cases in one year! As you said, "raising awareness is certainly a good idea".
An additional comment:
WoRMS (World Register of Marine Species), or at least some of its editors, simply mention that the species status is unaccepted with the comment: "Publication not compliant with Article 8.5 (2012) of the ICZN re. e-publications"
I add a few examples below.
http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=815935
http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=827172
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