University of Glasgow

Roderic Page

I know I\'m starting to sound like a broken record, but the more I look,
the more taxonomic databases seem to be full of garbage. Databases such
as the [Catalogue of life](http://www.catalogueoflife.org/), which
states that it is a \"quality-assured checklist\" have records that are
patently wrong. Here\'s yet another example.  
  
If you [search for the genus
*Raymondia*](http://www.catalogueoflife.org/col/search/all/key/Raymondionymus/match/1)
in the Catalogue of Life you get multiple occurrences of the same
species names, e.g.:  
  

- [Raymondionymus fossor Ganglebauer, L.,
  1906](http://www.catalogueoflife.org/col/details/species/id/7881452)
- [Raymondionymus fossor Hustache, A.,
  1930](http://www.catalogueoflife.org/col/details/species/id/7879910)

  
  
Both of these are listed as \"provisionally accepted names\", supplied
by [WTaxa: Electronic Catalogue of Weevil names
(Curculionoidea)](http://wtaxa.csic.es/). Clearly we can\'t have two
species with the same name, so what\'s happening?  
  
Firstly, Hustache, A., 1930 is:  
  
Hustache A (1930) Curculionidae Gallo-Rhénans. Annales de la Société
entomologique de France 99: 81-272.
<http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6112240j/f3>  
  
On [p. 246](http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6112240j/f168)
Hustache refers to *Raymondionymus fossor* Aubé, 1864 (see below).  
  
![F168
highres](http://lh6.ggpht.com/-vvK89EKU1po/T-hCCTfcUMI/AAAAAAAABcU/aqR0ddilEhg/f168.highres.png?imgmax=800 "f168.highres.png"){style="display:block; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;"
border="0" width="347" height="600"}  
  
So, *Raymondionymus fossor* Hustache, A., 1930 is not a new species but
simply the citation of a previously published one (it\'s a
[chresonym](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chresonym)). Hustache cites the
author of the name as Aubé, 1864, and you can see the original
description by Aubé in BioStor (Description de six espèces nouvelles de
Coléoptères d\'Europe dont deux appartenant a deux genres nouveaux et
aveugles, <http://biostor.org/reference/104589>). So, if the taxonomic
authority should be Aubé, 1864, what about *Raymondionymus fossor*
Ganglebauer, L., 1906? Again, if we track down the original publication
(Revision der Blindrüsslergattungen Alaocyba und Raymondionymus,
<http://biostor.org/reference/104591>) it\'s simply Ganglebauer citing
(on p. 142) Aubé\'s paper, not describing a new species.  
  
Note that the nomenclature of this weevil species is further complicated
because Aubé originally described the species as *Raymondia fossor*, but
*Raymondia* was already in use for a fly (see Über eine neue
Fliegengattung: Raymondia, aus der Familie der Coriaceen, nebst
Beschreibung zweier Arten derselben,
<http://biostor.org/reference/104588>). To resolve this homonymy
Wollaston proposed the name *Raymondionymus*:  
  
Wollaston, T. V. (1873). XVIII. On the Genera of the Cossonidae.
Transactions of the Royal Entomological Society of London, 21(4),
427--652.
[doi:10.1111/j.1365-2311.1873.tb00645.x](http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2311.1873.tb00645.x)<http://biostor.org/reference/51301>  
  
So, we have a bit of a mess. Unfortunately this mess percolates up
through other databases, for example EOL has three different pages for
[*Raymondionymus
fossor*](http://eol.org/search/?q=Raymondionymus+fossor).  
  
For me the lesson here is that relying on acquiring data from
\"trusted\" sources, curated by \"experts\" is simply not a tenable
strategy for building lists of taxa. If names are essential bits of
biodiversity infrastructure upon which we hang other data, then these
lists need to be cleaned, which means exposing them to scrutiny, and
providing an easy means for errors to be flagged and corrected. Trust is
something that is earned, not asserted, and it\'s time taxonomic
databases stop claiming to be authoritative simply because they rely on
expert sources. Expertise is no guarantee that you won\'t make errors.  
  
For me this is one of the key reasons projects like BHL are so
important. As more and more of the original literature becomes
available, we lessen our reliance on \"expertise\". We can start to see
for ourselves. In other words, [\"Nullius in
verba\"](http://royalsociety.org/about-us/history/) (\"take nobody\'s
word for it\").


I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record, but the more I look, the more taxonomic databases seem to be full of garbage. Databases such as the Catalogue of life, which states that it is a "quality-assured checklist" have records that are patently wrong.

Rogue Scholar Beiträge

More fictional taxa and the myth of the expert taxonomic database