response to Kevin J. Caley

[Kevin J.Caley]

Pavulaan at AOL.COM wrote:
>
> In a message dated 97-06-11 13:04:12 EDT, Kevin Caley writes:
>

>
> You refer to "personal study".  Do I take this to mean you are against
> amateur/advocational biologists or entomologists persuing studies on > their
own time?  I presume "professional" (ie: academic?  > institutional?) study is
O.K., but not "personal" study (ie: hobby > > entomologist?).

I think you misread my message.  What was meant, if it did not read as
such, was that the collection of organisms (for a final dead collection)
is something that I do not advocate.  I am fully involved in personal
study myself (and am, or at least have been a professional taxonomist).

What I was really saying was that collecting for collecting's sake
should be discouraged (as has happened with birds eggs) and that photos,
not specimens, should be taken whenever possible.  This way the
'specimen' is allowed to fulfil its reproductive cycle and not be taken
out of the general genetic pool.

>Read up on the full-time professions of all the authors >(names following
latin species names) who discovered and described those
> species.  You may be surprised at the overwhelming number of
> non-professionals who devoted a whole lot of "personal" study time to >make
the discoveries we now take for granted when reading texts, field >guides, etc.
(snipped)

A large number of these were before the common use of photography and
video (although admittedly, the percentage is now shrinking compared to
more modern nomenclaturists and discoverers).  If a species is already
identified, there should really be little need in collecting additional
specimens, unless there is sound reason, which should be regulated to
avoid extermination of the species concerned (e.g. a scientific study on
the variation in a population, or the examination of the ecology of a
particular area are both two examples where I would think such
collecting would actually be useful - the latter case would reveal
unusual specimens and possible new species).  I always 'collect'
specimens, but do this with a camera / sketch book and not a net, etc.

> How do you propose that someone describes a new species or constructs a key
of any organism without killing it or knocking it unconscious for (snipped)

See above

>  How do you get a live, tiny insect to hold still while constructing a >
detailed key?  How long do you think it takes an entomologist to >  construct a
key: minutes? seconds? hours?  Try DAYS, WEEKS,


Again, I emphasize the fact that in my own experience, keys were needed
because there were no good pictures 'catalogues'.  When a fully
comprehensive guide IS available (e.g. butterflies / dragonflies in the
UK, Beetles books, although the most useful here is now sadly out of
print), there rapidly becomes little need for such intense examination.
Often I have been in practical identification classes and shown students
how to identify insects with the use of images - the success rate seemed
to be higher, and the identification process much quicker.  Admittedly
there are problems with diptera and the like.  However, I must admit
that I was aiming this topic specifically at Lepidoptera.

> You speak of conservation.  How did we obtain the knowledge base to >
determine  if a species requires conservation?  We first had to
> identify the species. Meaning: specimens had to be killed, to make a
> key, so the species can thus be identified.

See above
> You are obviously not well-informed regarding taxonomic research, and > thus,
you cannot be even an amateur entomologist, as such views would > be
dangerously self-destructive to science.

Taxonomic Research does not always mean the same as private collecting.
I have narrowed down what I meant by this above.  My recollections of
amateur collectors was that many collected just to fill specimen draws,
boasting that it was useful for science.  However, when pressed, they
admitted that they did it purely for the fun of collecting and weren't
intending to do anything with it, which rather riled me.

I still think that there has been a misinterpretation of what I said in
my initial comment.  Anyway, thanks for forcing me to validate what I
meant!

Kevin J.