SUPERSPECIES - SPECIES - SUBSPECIES

[Jean-Michel MAES]

Dear Ron Gatrelle,

I am still using subspecies, but only in the sense of populations
geographically (and morphologically) distincts inside a species. I use the
species as the linnean definition, as a group of individuals who can
reproduce between then and give fertile progeny.

In which sense can we use super-species ? Is this accepted by the code ?
Is it a promotion of the species - subspecies to super species - species ?

Sincerely,

Jean-Michel MAES
MUSEO ENTOMOLOGICO
AP 527
LEON
NICARAGUA
tel 505-3116586
jmmaes at ibw.com.ni
www.insectariumvirtual.com/termitero/termitero.htm#nicaragua
www.insectariumvirtual.com/lasmariposasdenicaragua.htm
www-museum.unl.edu/research/entomology/workers/JMaes.htm
www-museum.unl.edu/research/entomology/database2/honduintro.htm
----- Original Message -----
From: Ron Gatrelle <gatrelle at tils-ttr.org>
To: Leps-l <Leps-l at lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Monday, February 05, 2001 4:39 AM
Subject: one lump or two?


> The term "super-species" is becoming the lumpers way of splitting without
> stooping, or switching, or admitting that subspecies is what these things
> are. So instead of a lump of subspecies, we just invent a new
> rank -Superspecies - and now have a lump of species.
>
> By the way, this is not an original thought of mine. This was told to me
> just last year at the Lep. Soc. meeting by one of the Big Name people.
> Everybody probably has a book with his name on it. I doubt if this
> individual has ever been thought of as a splitter either.
> _____________________
> I wonder if 300 years from now (after the term subspecies has long been
> eliminated and forgotten) if the splitters will be those who still persist
> in believing in species? After all, species are just minor transitional
> forms that come and go between glaciations. Remember, dinosaurs did not go
> extinct, they just grew feathers. Parts is parts.
>
> The lumbers will be those who believe that SuberSpecies are really best
> understood when viewed as segments of the GiantGenera. Of course by this
> time the term subfamily will have vanished also and the families that
> remain will be few having been lumped into three possibly only two (for
> butterflies) and a whopping six for moths. Hey could happen, as the
> definite trend the last decade is toward bigger umbrellas.
>
> On the other hand, common names will have exploded, due to the Great Feud
> of 2230. NABA had gotten so big, that each state chapter decided to form
> their own common names committee and once that happened all hell broke
> loose, counties, cites. Males and females of the same GiantGenera even had
> there own names. Then there was the creation of NAB EM in 2269 as the
> cocaine drug lords had armed the poachers and collectors to... Oh, I
forgot
> to tell you why. As it turned out it was discovered that mtDNA in Monarch
> legs was a powerful human aphrodisiac!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No need to say more
on
> that.
>
> Sincerely, Msacras Evoli
>
>
>
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