[Nhcoll-l] Curating specimens with uncertain type status?

[Shoobs, Nate]

Dear colleagues,
I’m looking for opinions on a tricky nomenclatural situation involving type material in our collection at OSUM. I have my own opinion based on my reading of the ICZN, but I’m curious to know how other museum staff would view the status of these specimens.

The basic situation (made generic/anonymous) is this:


  *   an author published a new animal species description in a peer reviewed print journal. Let’s say the year of publication is 2015. In the paper itself, there are numerous contradicting statements about the specimen that was intended to be the holotype. The author is deceased and cannot answer questions about their intent.

  *   The author, in the description, says something like this: “Holotype: OSUM 1234, 10 specimens. Paratype: OSUM 4567, 1 specimen.”.
  *   I know for a fact (from information outside of the publication) that the material which was figured as the holotype and used to write the “morphological description of the holotype” is not in lot OSUM 1234. It is the specimen OSUM 4567.
  *   The figure captions in the paper are internally inconsistent due to typos and miscommunications between the author and museum staff. For example, the sole figure of the holotype is captioned “Holotype: OSUM 1224” (a lot which is a different phylum and clearly not intended to be the type) rather than OSUM 1234.
Additional Information from outside the publication (which cannot be used per ICZN 72.4.1.1):

  *   A pre-print proof copy of the manuscript available online uses “OSUM 4567” in the caption for the figure of the holotype.
  *   OSUM 4567 has a label inside of it in the author’s handwriting that says “paratypes”.
  *   OSUM 1234 has 9 specimens, not 10. It has no markings or labels from the author, and the many specimens inside are not separated or marked in any way. None exactly match the measurements given by the author, and no individual is closer than any other to matching the published measurements.


To be clear, all the specimens in question are the same biological entity. This is purely a question about type status.
-Nate

--

[The Ohio State University]
Nathaniel F. Shoobs
Curator of Mollusks
College of Arts & Sciences Dept. of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology
Museum of Biological Diversity, 1315 Kinnear Rd, Columbus, OH 43212
614-688-1342 (Office)
mbd.osu.edu<http://mbd.osu.edu>
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