[CPN] Blog Post on the Cellinese & al. Proposal

[David Marjanovic]

> ONLY SPECIMENS OR APOMORPHIES AS SPECIFIERS.—Thumbs down.

On this I just commented:

[quote from the post]
> Of course, the rank-based codes do not do a perfect job. Many species
> named early on do not have type specimens. This is a problem that I
> would like to see addressed in the PhyloCode, although I'm not sure
> what the best solution is. Perhaps the best way is to disallow use of
> species that do not have type specimens, unless a neotype is assigned
> under the appropriate rank-based code at the same time.

I seriously think the best solution is to keep ignoring the problem. As long as no type specimen is actually needed in practice, there is no problem. When the need arises, people will designate a (neo)type, and that specimen automatically becomes the specifier according to the current draft.

This automatism is also very useful when the type changes, like when a lectotype is selected from a syntype (it's not all that rare that a syntype is found to consist of specimens from different species!) or when a type is lost and replaced by a neotype.

The current draft just says "the type" and lets the rank-based codes figure it out.