Twenty years for Zootaxa and ten years for Afromoths (Lepidoptera): a taxonomic interaction between the journal and an online relational database

Abstract

After twenty years of publishing the taxonomic journal Zootaxa, it is now the right time to synthesize its achievements and its contribution to the taxonomic knowledge of the Afrotropical Lepidoptera taxa. These contributions were made thanks to the exploration of natural habitats, museum collections, historic libraries, private holdings and phylogenetic investigations by many professional and amateur lepidopterists throughout the world. Zootaxa was introduced as a novel publication model with its innovative, community-based, and democratic approach to speed up the process of taxonomic publications. The fast-developing technology and especially the accessibility of digital taxonomic tools prepared the basis for novel links and inter-relationships. The global digital revolution and especially the overwhelming embrace of digital technology in Africa made an essential switch in the way we work: it became possible to present taxonomic information in a way that is searchable, consultable, illustrative, updatable, correctable and, most importantly—open and accessible to everyone. In this article, the trends of an increase in Afrotropical moth biodiversity knowledge published in Zootaxa and other journals are shortly discussed. Data are retrieved from the online taxonomic relational database Afromoths (www.afromoths.net).