Published on 03 December 2024
Today I’ve applied for this blog to have an ISSN, so that I can fix issues in Latin names for animals more easily.
The International Code of Zoological Nomenclature is the standard by which scientists in zoology know how to properly name species using the Linnaean classification system. It’s the reason that humans are known as Homo sapiens and not Homo the people who walk upright who think they know everything, and why Black-capped Chickadees are called Poecile atricapillus and not Those really cute birds formally. When you see Latin names in books, those books have been well formed according to the Code.
The code is long, and has a lot of bits about how to make Latin names look good. It also has sections specifically about grammatical gender agreement. This determines why the Duck-billed Platypus is Ornithorhynchus anatinus and not Ornithorhynchus anatina (not that the ending is different). These rules are normally followed very closely, but they have some issues. At times, they are conflicting. They privilege Latin and Greek over other languages, and European languages over the rest of the world. They allow options for naming species after people only if they are male or female, and not nonbinary. The code needs some work.
Sometimes, changes are necessary. This only happens when gender agreement was messed up, or if a different name has priority in the literature, or if there was a spelling error or something. In order to make these changes, one normally needs to go through the scientific review process, or to publish a name change in a reputable journal or book. For instance, a PhD thesis would be an acceptable place to publish a name change, if one ran across one in the work, just as it would be an acceptable place to publish a new species. This is what keeps personal letters from being places to define species; you need to announce them somewhere where scientists would read about it.
This is what I have been doing most recently. Going through the scientific literature, I have occasionally noticed that some of the Latin names don’t match the respective genders of their genus. An example is Ophiopsammus maculata; psammus comes from the Greek ψαμμος, which can be masculine or feminine, and it was translated with a changed ending, -us. Under the ICZN, that means it should be considered masculine. So, maculata should be maculatus.
I pointed this out by writing a short note - a two page journal article that goes over all of the species in Ophiodermatidae and suggests changes for the species that need to be adjusted. I submitted this to Zootaxa, and it was accepted, and should be published fairly soon.
This is a long process - it had to go through peer-review, editorial review, and then be published. I started to wonder if it was necessary; is there another way that I could publish these changes? How reputable does a venue need to be to make nomenclatural acts formal?
It turns out that “reputable” is pretty clearly defined in the ICZN code, in Article 8. I’ve listed these points below. As you read them, ask yourself: What is stopping a web blog from being a place to publish things?
8.1. Criteria to be met
A work must satisfy the following criteria:
8.1.1. it must be issued for the purpose of providing a public and permanent scientific record,
8.1.2. it must be obtainable, when first issued, free of charge or by purchase, and
8.1.3. it must have been produced in an edition containing simultaneously obtainable copies by a method that assures
8.1.3.1. numerous identical and durable copies (see Article 8.4), or
8.1.3.2. widely accessible electronic copies with fixed content and layout.
And then, in 8.5:
8.5. Works issued and distributed electronically
To be considered published, a work issued and distributed electronically must
8.5.1. have been issued after 2011,
8.5.2. state the date of publication in the work itself, and
8.5.3. be registered in the Official Register of Zoological Nomenclature (ZooBank) (see Article 78.2.4) and contain evidence in the work itself that such registration has occurred.
8.5.3.1. The entry in the Official Register of Zoological Nomenclature must give the name and Internet address of an organization other than the publisher that is intended to permanently archive the work in a manner that preserves the content and layout, and is capable of doing so. This information is not required to appear in the work itself.
8.5.3.2. **The entry in the Official Register of Zoological Nomenclature must give an ISBN for the work or an ISSN for the journal containing the work. The number is not required to appear in the work itself.**
8.5.3.3. An error in stating the evidence of registration does not make a work unavailable, provided that the work can be unambiguously associated with a record created in the Official Register of Zoological Nomenclature before the work was published.
I have bolded 8.5.3.2. Why? Because if you read the code clearly, there’s nothing that eliminates this blog from being a place to publish nomenclatural acts - except for this point. This website doesn’t have an ISSN - why would it? Those are for publishers, and people who want their work to be archived somewhere. But those publishers got their ISSNs assigned to them from somewhere, though. In the case of Aotearoa New Zealand, that place is the National Library, where there is a handy form for requesting them.
I have now sent in an application on that form.
I don’t need to be able to perform nomenclatural acts on this website. I could go with the process I have currently been doing, using journals and the review process. But I am curious about this workflow. It would help - for instance, right now I’ve had a paper stalled for four months by an unresponsive editor. With this, I could publish immediately.
The ICZN’s stated goal is to preserve stability in taxonomy. That is incredibly clear. But the ICZN also mandates how names should be made. Publishing is an arduous process. But it doesn’t have to be.
We’ll see if this process works. After getting an ISSN, I need to submit the blog to the ICZN itself as a publishing venue. Updates as they happen.