Names 'n Numbers

Kondla, Norbert FOR:EX Norbert.Kondla at gems3.gov.bc.ca
Thu Feb 22 15:23:09 EST 2001


Although the first Fox Sparrow showed up yesterday we are still some weeks
from seeing butterflies here in southern BC, Canada so I cannot report on
real bugs. However, I will mention some interesting numbers gleaned from the
biosis website using Zoological Record data.  Taxonomists have been very
busy since 1978: 421,801 new animal taxa !!! Lepidopterists have apparently
been sleeping at the throttle since only 23,323 new Lepidoptera taxa have
been introduced. Contrast this to those Coleopterists who apparently are not
taking time to sleep; as evidenced by their record-setting performance of
59,936 Coleoptera taxa :-) I was surprised to see that even in what I
thought to be fairly stable and well-known groups like birds and mammals
there have been 1588 new bird taxa and 6,363 new mammal taxa.  Any guesses
how many more new taxa will be added to the literature in the next 20 or so
years ??  No sign of any stability in animal taxonomy that I can detect; and
thank goodness for that :-)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Norbert Kondla  P.Biol., RPBio.
Forest Ecosystem Specialist, Ministry of Environment
845 Columbia Avenue, Castlegar, British Columbia V1N 1H3
Phone 250-365-8610
Mailto:Norbert.Kondla at gems3.gov.bc.ca       
http://www.env.gov.bc.ca


 
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