Published on 06 November 2026
I was one of the authors on a new short note:
Shinichi Nakahara, Richard Littauer, John V. Calhoun (2026). A new name is not needed for Hesperia zachaeus Plötz, 1883, nec Fabricius, 1798 (Lepidoptera: Riodinidae, Hesperiidae). Zootaxa 5897(5): 598–600. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5897.5.12
The paper was largely Nakahara’s concept, and he wrote most of it. In short, two authors used the same name for a butterfly in 1798 and 1883, and normally this means that one of the names should be replaced. We argue this isn’t necessary, because the names don’t really refer to a clear taxon. They’re dubious at best, or, in Latin, nomina dubia. The genus of butterflies is called Hesperia: an example from Vermont is in the photo.
I had some fun in the middle analyzing the etymology of variants of zachaeus which showed up through the years: zachea, zacheus, and Zachæus. None of these names are exactly the same as zachaeus, for different reasons - the first two are misspellings, and the last is an incorrect original spelling under the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature which needs to be amended to zachaeus. Capitalization and digraphs don’t work for species names in the Code.
This paper was fun for another reason - we got to quote Art. 23.9.5:
When an author discovers that a species-group name in use [emphasis added] is a junior primary homonym [Art. 53.3] of another species-group name also in use, but the names apply to taxa not considered congeneric after 1899, the author must not automatically replace the junior homonym; the case should be referred to the Commission for a ruling under the plenary power and meanwhile prevailing usage of both names is to be maintained [Art. 82].
This name is close to being applied here - but no one currently accepts this name as valid, so it is not considered in use. Instead, both versions of the name zachaeus are nomina dubia, meaning we’re not quite sure what butterflies they refer to. So this paper is a long way of saying: “We don’t need a new name, it’s unclear what butterfly this is, and the later name is also kind of not useful.”
Taxonomy is a puzzle. Like any puzzle, it can be fun to figure out.
The paper is only a couple of pages, and it’s behind a paywall. I am happy to email it to anyone who is interested.
Published on 17 September 2026
This year, Alan Rubin and I helped organize and co-edit the PyConAU 2026 Academic Proceedings. It’s just been published! You can take a look at the eight peer-reviewed abstracts here.
Note: Zenodo is being hammered by AI bots currently, and may take a while to load. Try and raise this point with any AI companies you know that perform scraping, if you’re able to influence policy.
PyConAU is Australia’s national conference for everyone who uses the Python programming language. In 2026, it was held on 26-30 August in Brisbane - which is also in the West Island of New Zealand, as last year we announced that this year’s KiwiPyCon would be held in Aus.
This proceedings would not have been possible without Jack Skinner and Rhydwyn McGuire and others on the PyConAU organizing team. I’m grateful for their work.
I wish I had been able to attend myself – I had to choose between PyConAU and another conference due to finances and other obligations. I hope I will be able to attend next year!
Python is not only the world’s most popular programming language, but also the bedrock for academic and scientific programming. I’m glad to have been able to contribute in some small way.
Published on 15 April 2026
My late night habit of reading open access papers published in Zootaxa continues to provide some interesting small papers. Last week, a paper of mine was published from this work:
The paper is, in short, a correction of a single name published in a new paper, so that the ending of the species name conforms to the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature. Why is this important? It isn’t. It is in no way important. The Code is incredibly silly for mandating this kind of change. But what is important is that we follow the Code.
Codes like the ICZN are arcane and byzantine. They’re difficult to manage and difficult to follow. The more obscure rules, like with gender agreement, are annoying. But when we don’t follow those rules, the entire edifice of the Code is threatened, and we’re closer to not having a Code at all. That would be very difficult for science as a whole, as these names are currently the standard for talking about taxa.
I wrote this paper because I think that following the Code is important – and because I want to not-so-subtly shift the field towards making these sorts of changes unnecessary, by pointing out to scientists how silly the Code currently is. The more people have to wrestle with a poor Code, the more they are likely to push back and go through channels to ask their commissioners to change the Code.
It’s not the best strategy. A better strategy would be for me to talk directly to commissioners about changing the Code (which I’ve done), or to write articles about the changes directly (done that too), or to get myself elected to the commission (tried that). Given that those avenues are already being used or are exhausted, I’m doing what I can - by making sure the Code is upheld as it is. Further, I am also incentivized to publish papers. Academia is silly, too.
This paper is so short it doesn’t have an abstract. And, because I paid the $25 fee and because the paper is therefore under a CC-BY-NC license, I can reprint it here:
Lathrobium sapaense Tokareva & Bekchiev, 2025 was first described as Lathrobium sapaensis Tokareva & Bekchiev, 2025. The etymology states: “The specific epithet is an adjectival form derived from Sa Pa, the forest waterfall in mountainous Lao Cai Province, Vietnam, where nearby the species was discovered.” (Tokareva, Bekchiev and Nguyen 2025) The adjectival Latin ending -ensis has been added to the stem, sapa. This is the normal process for using this morpheme to latinize scientific names with non-Latinate etymologies. However, the suffix -ensis marks for the masculine and feminine gender; the neuter gender would be marked with the suffix -ense. The International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN 1999; henceforth ‘the Code’) mandates in Articles 31 and 34 that adjectival species-group names must agree with the genus-group name with which they are combined. In this case, Lathrobium Gravenhorst, 1802 has neuter gender, so the species-group name must agree in gender with it.
The gender of Lathrobium can be ascertained through combination with other species-group names in the genus, such as Lathrobium longwangshanense Peng, Li & Zhao, 2012 or Lathrobium tarokoense Assing, 2010, or by analysis of the generic name according to Article 30 of the Code. Under Article 30.1.3, the name is neuter because it is a Greek word, most likely λάθρῃ ‘stealthy’, with a change of ending, and so should take the neuter gender as -um is normally neuter in Latin. Using a different interpretation, the word does not resemble a Greek word exactly (necessary under Article 26), but it is combined by Gravenhorst with other neuter names, such as in L. lineare or L. terminatum (Gravenhorst 1802). Under Article 30.2.3, this confers neuter gender on the generic name.
The available name is Lathrobium sapaense Tokareva & Bekchiev, 2025
You can read the paper here: https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5792.1.12
Published on 16 March 2026
Today I facilitated the Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington PGSA Special General Meeting, where we adopted a new constitution, elected some new executive committee members, and said thanks to those who were rolling off of the committee - including me.
I’ve been helping with the PGSA since I first landed, if at first in a minimal, arm’s length kind of way. I knew when I got here that it would be tempting to help with the PGSA, because I like organizing and helping students, but that it would be exactly the sort of job that would take a lot of my time, wouldn’t be paid work, and would get in the way of my thesis and my other organizing, such as with CURIOSS. Last October, after a year of attending events and meeting fellow postgrads, I realized at the AGM that there was a constitutional issue involving the amount of postgrads on the exec. So, I volunteered to run during the meeting, and ended up being elected.
For the last six months, I’ve been helping out where I could as an exec – helping to figure out strategy, advising on how to handle negotiations with VUWSA, the student association that includes undergrads and which was trying to take over all of PGSA’s activities, serving on various faculty boards where a postgrad voice from PGSA was missing, and organizing and attending some events. Today was the capstone of that, as I helped shepherd through the new constitution, something that was mandated by the Societies Act here. I helped with PythonNZ’s new constitution, too, as they went through the same process. The SGM today was a bit difficult to facilitate, as there was some excellent and very difficult questions to answer about how the new constitution is going. I think we managed. All of the motions passed.
I ran for the position of VP Academic/Research, but iff (if and only if) no one else ran. Thankfully, someone else did. So, for now, I find myself as of this afternoon without a position. I am now just a member of the PGSA again. I look forward to doing what I can on Te Here Tāura Rangahau Faculty of Graduate Research (FGR) board, and on Te Wāhanga a Manaia Faculty of Science and Engineering (FoSE) board, and others. But, from now, the exec meetings are optional – which is great, because it means I can focus on my thesis work. I’m happy about that.
I’m looking forward to being able to attend the coffee meetups, and just saying hi.
Published on 11 March 2026
After the last Wikicon Aotearoa in Ōtautahi Christchurch in May, 2025, I made the decision to change the license on all of my iNaturalist photos to enable easy reuse for Wikipedia and elsewhere. I am not a professional photographer; while I have sold art before, and while I have had showings of my work, I don’t prioritize returns on my photography. I am just happy to see it used.
Which is why I was excited to get a Google Alert a few weeks ago that my name had been published somewhere on the internet. In this case, I was pinged that I had been mentioned in an article called Rat-free forest offers rare boost for kōkako north of Rotorua. The article talks about how an indigenous Māori-led conservation project in the north of the North Island is doing exceptionally well at eradicating predators that imperil the native birds here in New Zealand. The focal species for this project is the Kōkako, a beautiful endemic that has a haunting, organ-like call. I’ve only heard it once, on Tiritiri Matangi near Auckland, where I managed to snap some photos of a Kōkako as it munched on some Taupata on the coast.
I didn’t explicitly allow RNZ to copy this image. They didn’t ask. They didn’t need to, as it is freely available under a CC-BY license on iNaturalist. I don’t profit on this work. That’s OK. I profit in other ways - my work was part of a movement of people trying to save this rare species, and through having access to free, good imagery, the journalists were able to make the project come alive to a wider audience. That’s profit enough.