Photography-based taxonomy is inadequate, unnecessary, and potentially harmful for biological sciences

The question whether taxonomic descriptions naming new animal species without type specimen(s) deposited in collections should be accepted for publication by scientific journals and allowed by the Code has already been discussed in Zootaxa (Dubois & Nemésio 2007; Donegan 2008, 2009; Nemésio 2009a–b; Dubois 2009; Gentile & Snell 2009; Minelli 2009; Cianferoni & Bartolozzi 2016; Amorim et al. 2016). This question was again raised in a letter supported by 35 signatories published in the journal Nature (Pape et al. 2016) on 15 September 2016. On 25 September 2016, the following rebuttal (strictly limited to 300 words as per the editorial rules of Nature) was submitted to Nature, which on 18 October 2016 refused to publish it. As we think this problem is a very important one for zoological taxonomy, this text is published here exactly as submitted to Nature, followed by the list of the 493 taxonomists and collection-based researchers who signed it in the short time span from 20 September to 6 October 2016

ANALYSE DES FACTEURS D'ORDRE DES MÉTAUX DE TRANSITION DANS LES PHOSPHURES ET ARSÉNIURES MM'P ET MM'As

Les études magnétiques, par spectrométrie Mössbauer, par diffraction des neutrons et des rayons X sur les composés MM'P et MM'As ont mis en évidence un ordre très marqué des métaux de transition 3d et 4d, qui ne peut s'expliquer simplement que dans une description cristallochimique analogue à celle des oxydes. Les 4 facteurs d'ordre : facteur géométrique, nombre d'électrons d, effets de champ cristallin et transfert électronique s-d sont discutés successivement.The 3d and 4d transition metal ordering in MM'P and MM'As pnictides has been studied by Mössbauer spectroscopy, neutron and X ray diffraction, magnetic measurement. Like in the crystallochemistry of oxides, the order can be correlated with the non metal surrounding of the transition metal site. Four ordering factors : size factor, d electron number, crystalline field and s-d electron transfert are discussed