University of Glasgow

Roderic Page

In Arthur C. Clarke\'s short story [The Nine Billion Names of
God](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nine_Billion_Names_of_God) Tibetan
monks hire two programmers to help them generate all the the possible
names of God. The monks believe that the purpose of the Universe is to
generate those names, once that goal is achieved the Universe will end.
As the understandably skeptical programmers leave having completed their
task, they look up into the sky and notice that \"overhead, without any
fuss, the stars were going out.\"  
  
Leaving aside the delicious irony that arises if we recast this story
with the monks replaced by taxonomists, much of our work with taxonomic
names seems to be enumerating endless permutations of the same names.
Part of the problem is the way some databases store and provide access
to names.  
  

> Argh, taxonomic databases that don\'t provide canonical names (i.e.,
> with authority names REMOVED) will be first against the wall
> @[eol](https://twitter.com/eol)
>
> --- Roderic Page (@rdmpage) [June 13,
> 2012](https://twitter.com/rdmpage/status/212932316341866497){data-datetime="2012-06-13T15:39:54+00:00"}

  
The simplest way to represent a taxonomic name is to just have the name
(the \"canonical name\"), without additional bits such as the taxonomic
authority. In my view, any taxonomic database that serves names should
provide the canonical name. I\'m not arguing that they shouldn\'t
provide taxonomic authority information (ideally separately, but could
also be as part of a canonical name + authority string), I just want
them to *also* provide just the canonical name. For some reason this
seems to upset people (e.g., [this thread on the TDWG mailing
lists](http://lists.tdwg.org/pipermail/tdwg-content/2012-March/002845.html)),
so let me explain why I think this matters.  
  
Most people use taxonomic names without the authority (just Google a
taxonomic name with and without it\'s authority and compare the number
of hits). So, if your goal is to be of service to your users, make sure
you provide the canonical name.  
  
Then there is the issue of integrating data from different sources. The
more parts to the name the more scope there is for ambiguity. For
example, my first ever publication was a description of a new species of
peacrab, *Pinnotheres atrinicola*, published in:  
  
Page, R. D. M. (1983). Description of a new species of *Pinnotheres* ,
and redescription of *P. novaezelandiae* (Brachyura: Pinnotheridae) .
New Zealand Journal of Zoology, 10(2), 151--162.
[doi:10.1080/03014223.1983.10423904](http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03014223.1983.10423904)  
  
If we look for this name in [ION](http://www.organismnames.com) we
discover three records:  
  

*Pinnotheres atrinacola*

urn:lsid:organismnames.com:name:1192320

*Pinnotheres atrinicola*

urn:lsid:organismnames.com:name:371872

*Pinnotheres atrinicola* Page 1983

urn:lsid:organismnames.com:name:371873

  
  
Two are duplicates of \"Pinnotheres atrinicola\", with and without the
authority, one is a misspelling (\"Pinnotheres
atrin**[a]{style="text-decoration:underline;"}**cola\"). Given just the
name we already see that it\'s easy for people to get the spelling wrong
and generate lexical variants.  
  
If we now add the authority we get more potential for variation. ION
write the authority as \"Page 1983\" (no comma), but other databases
such as WoRMS write it as [Page,
1983](http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=445174)
(with comma). So we now have two variations of the name, and two for the
authority, so 4 possible strings if we include both name and authority.
This combinatorial explosion means that we can rapidly generate lots of
strings that are fundamentally the same.  
  
I\'m not arguing that taxonomic authorities aren\'t useful, and I want
them wherever they are known, but insisting that databases serve name +
authority to the exclusion of just the canonical name is a recipe for
disaster. One could argue that users can parse the string into name and
authority components, but that\'s a headache (just take a look at
[taxon-name-processing](http://code.google.com/p/taxon-name-processing/)
for details). Why make users go through hoops to get basic
information?  
  
Another reason I\'m wary of taxonomic authority strings is that people
don\'t always understand the conventions. For example, in my [previous
post](http://iphylo.blogspot.com/2012/06/visualising-differences-between.html)
I used the following example for names that differed in authority
string:  
  

- *Demansia torquata* Günther 1862
- *Demansia torquata* (Günther, 1862)

  
The use of parentheses seems a small difference, but (a) it means the
strings are different, and (b) the presence or absence of parentheses
changes the meaning of the authority. In this example, *Demansia
torquata* Günther 1862 means that Günther is the original author of the
name *Demansia torquata*, and so if I search Günther\'s publications
from 1862 for \"Demansia torquata\" I will find that name. *Demansia
torquata* (Günther, 1862), on the other hand, means that Günther
originally described this species in 1862, but he placed it in a
different genus, so my search for \"Demansia torquata\" in 1862 is
likely to be fruitless. So, if the authority is actually (Günther, 1862)
but a database tells me it\'s Günther, 1862 I\'d be wasting my time
looking for the name in 1862.  
  
As it turns out, this snake was originally described as *Diemansia
torquata* (see \"On new species of snakes in the collection of the
British Museum\" <http://biostor.org/reference/50221>). The genus name
*Diemansia* differs from *Demansia*, hence (Günther, 1862) should be
correct, but it looks like *Diemansia* and *Demansia* are just some of
the variations of the same snake genus (see for example
<http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/22393791>). \*Sigh\*  
  
Variation in taxonomic authority extends beyond parentheses. In a post
on [clustering
strings](http://iphylo.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/clustering-strings.html) I
used examples of taxonomic authorities for the genus *Helicella*:  

    Ferrusac 1821
    Bonavita 1965
    Ferussa 1821
    Fer.
    Lamarck 1812
    Ferussac 1821

  
There are six different strings here which correspond to three different
authorities. In this example the name *Helicella* is a homonym (same
name used for different taxa) so having the taxonomic authority can help
decide which name is actually meant, but people can\'t seem to agree on
how to spell the authority names, and in other cases they might not
agree on dates of publication, hence we get variations such as those
above. Even when authorities are useful, they come at a cost. And
that\'s not even considering
[chresonyms](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chresonym) where the authority
isn\'t the original author, but instead is a form of citation of the use
of a name.  
  
All of this variation is a cause of ambiguity, and when we combine
permutations of taxonomic names and taxonomic authorities, things start
to get messy. Indeed, I\'d argue that projects such as the [Global Names
Index](http://gni.globalnames.org/) (GNI) are essentially doing what
Arthur C. Clarke\'s monks were doing, trying to capture near endless
permutations of the same names. Given this, it seems crazy not to try
and keep things as simple as possible. In the vast majority of cases I
want the name, I don\'t want the rest of the cruff attached to it.
Taxonomic authorities are really just proxies for citation, so lets
focus on getting that information linked to names, and stop making life
difficult for users.


In Arthur C. Clarke's short story The Nine Billion Names of God Tibetan monks hire two programmers to help them generate all the the possible names of God. The monks believe that the purpose of the Universe is to generate those names, once that goal is achieved the Universe will end.

Publicaciones de Rogue Scholar

Taxonomy and the nine billion names of God