Butterfly systematists
Michael Gochfeld
gochfeld at eohsi.rutgers.edu
Tue Jun 8 18:51:22 EDT 1999
My crack about the number of butterfly systematists was made from the
ornithologic perspective. For years we have taught that the number of
systematists is inversely related to the number of problems. Hence I
share Doug's chuckle. Was it one of the Huxleys who when asked what he
could guess about the personality of the Creator replied "an inordinate
fondness for beetles"---but not apparently for beetle systematists.
Anyway, there are probably 10x as many bird systematists as butterfly
systematists. That's merely a guess of course.
Maybe the excess of systematists is merely grounds for taxonomic
mischief. And remember there are biomedical researchers who don't know
that the Mouse (i.e. the laboratory white mouse) is not the same as our
various wild mice (Microtus, Peromyscus). We submitted a paper on
Peromyscus to a medical journal and had an editor question the results
because they didn't agree with what "everybody already knows" about
Mice.
Mike Gochfeld
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