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Taxonomic References

To: Peter Ewin <>
Subject: Taxonomic References
From: Peter Woodall <>
Date: Mon, 04 Apr 2005 15:13:25 +1000
Hi Peter

I think that some of the taxonomic experts are away so I'll have a stab at this although I'm not sure exactly what you are asking.

You are correct in writing that the name, date, journal/book, vol and pages after the species name refers to the description of the species, by Gould in this case. It is similar to a normal reference but abbreviated so that the title is omitted - but the paper that is being cited would have a title in the journal. The length of the paper can vary from a single page, to many pages long. In the early days when many species and subspecies were being described, each description could be little more than a few lines long, so several could be on the same page. Today it is more likely that a number of pages would be devoted to a new name, species or subspecies. The reason a single page number is given is probably due to "page priority". Occasionally the same species may have been inadvertently been described twice in the same book, then the first description, with the lowest page number, would be used as the correct name (other things being equal). It is not just the older refs that are treated this way, recent ones would also be abbreviated (but for most species the descriptions are many years old). The authors are not usually given with their initials unless there is the possibility of confusion, eg with a number of "Smiths".

Generally these days, most ornithological journals do not require the author, date and citation to follow species names, unless the paper is about taxonomy and therefore this information is important and relevant (eg most species lists of scientific names will not have this information, but in other groups like invertebrates and plants it is more common to give the citation following the species name). Even when the author and citation are given, these are often not included in the reference list at the end of a paper, an exception to this is the Handbook of Birds of the World, where the editors required a full list of these species citations, as well as the general citations in the text. Some of the early ones can take a lot of tracking down.

I hope this covers what you want, if not fire off a few more questions.

Peter

At 01:31 PM 3/04/2005 +1000, you wrote:
I am looking at some references and I am interested if anyone can explain in more detail how some of the older references used in taxonomy are cited. An example is the citation for the Southern Whiteface is:
Xerophila leucopsis Gould 1841 Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond. 1840:175

Is this reference treated like a journal article (ie there will be a title to the reference)? Is there a specific article describing this (and other species) in the proccedings or is it just a series of descriptions of individual species by different authors (hence the requirement for the page)?

Any information on how this and other similar references should be treated would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers,
Peter


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