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<DIV>Dear David Eades,<BR>in my opinion, by keeping the two things separate: formal facts governed by the Code and facts of usage events, we can provide a more complete information basis.<BR>For example, when you have a checklist like this:<BR> Aus albus AuthorA 1900<BR> Aus bus AuthorB 1800<BR> syn.: Xum album AuthorC 1890<BR>Can you make out a secondary homonymy in this example? You cannot, because at least you would need to know what kind of epithet is "album": noun in apposition or variable adjective that takes the ending alb-us when synonymized under the masculine genus.<BR>In my "Nomina Carabidarum" I noted the gender of each genus, the kind of epithets, the variable endings of adjectival epithets, availability of names and history of generic combinations for each epithet. In this way it's easy to spot primary and secondary homonyms, get the correct gender matches in binomina, etc. Recently I was invited so I'm trying now to find a way to contribute my data to Joel Hallan's "BioCat", and I'm interested to know how can I do it without major loss of information.</DIV>
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<DIV>Your mention of the debate with ITIS is interesting. I saw more debates of this sort elsewhere, but where is the rule saying that you must not adapt a generic combination of a synonym? Is it because some bioinformatics folks want to treat zoological names in the same way as botanic names? Is it because they want checklists to represent a "neutral" view and include actual citations only?<BR>Apropos, I don't believe a taxonomic checklist can ever be "neutral". It has to be done and authorized by an expert who may have to decide on nov.combs, changes in rank, etc. Simply compiling uncritical checklists from entries in Zoological Record doesn't work, as we all know. </DIV>
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<DIV>I hope that ZooBank will be the place where we can get the full information belonging to the "realm of nomenclature". Once we have such a resource, checklists in the "realm of taxonomy" - like the wonderful SpeciesFile Orthoptera etc. lists or Joel Hallan's BioCat - need not repeat all the same.</DIV>
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<DIV>Best wishes,<BR>Wolfgang<BR>---------------------------------<BR>Wolfgang Lorenz, Tutzing, Germany</DIV>
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