[Nhcoll-l] voucher

[Douglas Yanega]

Type specimens are a special kind of voucher, in the sense that there 
are formal rules governing their designation and deposition, under 
various Codes (ICNafp, ICZN).

That's really all that they are, despite the formal categorization and 
status. Of all the categories, of course, the one that has the least 
nomenclatural signficance ("paratypes") is most akin to the general 
understanding of vouchers; *paratypes collectively provide evidence for 
how the original author perceived the circumscription of their new 
taxon*. They have no status nomenclaturally - and, in fact, if one was 
to need a replacement for a lost holotype, you might NOT want to use a 
paratype - but they can be very important taxonomically; after all, if a 
holotype is an adult male (or female), then the paratypes can include 
the other sex, or immature stages, and that can be very valuable.

Peace,

-- 
Doug Yanega      Dept. of Entomology       Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0314     skype: dyanega
phone: (951) 827-4315 (disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
              https://faculty.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html
   "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
         is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/nhcoll-l/attachments/20221103/cb5af0e7/attachment.html>