lep names

[John Shuey]

> Lep folks,
>
> FYI, at its annual meeting last summer, the Lep Soc passed a motion:
> "that a committee be formed to draft a position statement on the
> rules and guidelines by which taxonomic decisions are made and to
> examine the possibility of developing a list of scientific names for
> North American butterflies."
>
 
The basic problem with this idea is the lack of a clear consensus of what defines
a species.  I think this is indeed a basic problem that will not be resolved such
that everyone will be happy.  So what definition do we use?  Biological species
concepts? Phylogentic? Phenetic? Evolutionary lineage? A confused compromise?
All these approaches have merits and disadvantages.  The official list will have
to be based on some imperfect approach to this problem.
 
Choosing a solution and force feeding it to the world inhibits the creative
process.  A good example would be the many new subspecies described in Ron
Gatrelle's Taxonomic Review.  The Opler led "Committee", which has strong
conservative leanings tried to bury the bulk of the names.  Lost in all this is
the thought provoking nature of these taxa.  Species and subspecies are after
all, only human generated concepts which try to explain the natural world.  Do
these concepts represent true lineages? Do they shed light on evolutionary and
biogeographic patterns?  Will we ever know?  If the Committee has its way, these
names would be quickly buried for all time, and no one would ever dare dig them
up or investigate them in the field.  The Committee does a disservice to curious
minds - many of us actually have thought processes of our own.
 
Look at what might have (and in fact briefly did) happen with Papilio joanae.
Despite the fact that Hietzman actually presented a very convincing case
supporting a biological species concept in the original description, "better
scientific minds" knew better, and immediately sunk it.  If it weren't such a
distinctive species (it really isn't that similar looking to P polyxenes if you
have a feel for machaon phenotypes) it may still be lost today.  But despite the
proclamations of "better minds" they simply could not make this inconvenient
butterfly go away.
 
So now we want to institutionalize a Committee of better minds, such that we can
KNOW the species.
 
Well when I grew up, biology was an interesting subject, full of mystery and
intrigue.  Evolution was a fluid, continuous process.
 
Boy, I guess I was wrong.  The Committee will define for us a static species list
- based on such rigorous criteria as "this is the consensus of the committee"
(also known as the "we said so and we know best species concept").  All evolution
obviously happened in the past, so that  the committee can clearly see the end
result and can  truly KNOW the Species. (And of course don't forget that this is
what it is all about - providing a static list of The Species so people can track
their life lists - bio-complexity should not be allowed to interfere with THE
LIFE LIST).
 
But you know, despite all the "better minds" out there, we figured out that the
Earth ain't flat, nor the center of the universe.  And to be honest, I thought
that Darwin established the concept of evolution as an ongoing process as well.
(this Darwin thing might be too recent to have infiltrated too deeply into the
Lepidoptera community though).
 
So, should species be easily identifiable?  Maybe - and maybe not.  Do we want to
impose a sanctioned "concept of species" for butterflies.  Definitely not.  I
like a good mystery - especially the mystery of life.
 
I apologize for both my cynicism and sarcasm,
John Shuey
 
 
 
 
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