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Issue: Vol. 4545 No. 3: 18 Jan. 2019
Type: Correspondence
Published: 2019-01-17
DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4545.3.10
Page range: 444–446
Abstract views: 118
PDF downloaded: 4

How not to delimit taxa: a critique on a recently proposed “pragmatic classification” of jumping spiders (Arthropoda: Arachnida: Araneae: Salticidae)

Natural History Museum Bern, Switzerland Institute of Ecology and Evolution, University of Bern, Switzerland
Natural History Museum Bern, Switzerland Hummeltal, Germany
Laboratório Especial de Coleções Zoológicas, Instituto Butantan, São Paulo, SP, Brazil
Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Democritus University of Thrace, Alexandroupolis, Greece
Department of Arachnology, Zentrum für Naturkunde, Universität Hamburg, Germany
Natural History Museum Bern, Switzerland Institute of Ecology and Evolution, University of Bern, Switzerland
Department of Zoology & Entomology, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa
Hummeltal, Germany
Arachnology, Senckenberg Research Institute, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Department of Zoology & Entomology, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa Institute for Biological Problems of the North, Magadan, Russia
Department of Zoology, National Museum of Nature and Science, Japan
Laboratório Especial de Coleções Zoológicas, Instituto Butantan, São Paulo, SP, Brazil
Institute of Ecology and Evolution, University of Bern, Switzerland
Araneae Arthropoda Arachnida Salticidae

Abstract

Modern taxonomy and systematics profit from an invaluable tool that has been developed in the course of more than a century by intense discussions and negotiations of generations of zoologists and palaeontologists: The International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN 1999, 2012). The main goal of the Code is “to promote stability and universality in the scientific names of animals and to ensure that the name of each taxon is unique and distinct” (Melville 1995, ICZN 1999: 2). The provisions of the Code are generally accepted and thoroughly applied by the scientific community. Exceptions, such as the one described below, are very rare.

 

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