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Re: Phil Currie podcast interview + Jurassic dinosaurs



On Thu, January 1, 2015 3:32 pm, Ben Creisler wrote:
> New Jurassic dinosaurs (in Spanish)
>
> http://www.dinoastur.com/2015/01/01/dinosaurios-jurasicos-2014/
>
> This blog posting in Spanish mentions the various new taxa of
> stegosaurs proposed by Russian free-lancer Roman Ulansky, whom I
> mentioned on the DML for an earlier self-published item. He has now
> self-published more short pieces in late 2014 claiming to give the
> proposed names formal status.
>
> However, as noted in the DinoAstur blog above, the status of Ulansky's
> self-published new stegosaur genera and species appears questionable.
> The new taxa are all based on the descriptions of species or fossil
> material published by formal scholars in the field, who may have
> considered the material nondiagnostic, or for material that may be
> under study by someone else.
>
> Ulansky himself did not examine the fossils. He offers no rigorous
> definition of the taxa or a phylogenetic analysis, or apparently any
> acknowledgment of scholarly vetting of his work by experts.
>
> Think of the self-published "Amphicoelias brontodiplodocus" of a few
> years back that has not been accepted or acknowledged in the formal
> literature. And maybe even the Raymond Hoser situation in Australia,
> where the self-styled herpetologist's self-published new names for
> taxa are being systematically boycotted by career herpetologists, who
> have called on the ICZN to find a way to render Hoser's names invalid.
>
>
> Bottom line here is that mentioning the above blog post is not meant
> as a recognition that Ulansky's new stegosaur names are valid or
> should be used.
>
> However, Ulansky registered his names on Zoobank and Wikipedia has
> entries for the new names.
>
> http://zoobank.org/References/5FE177A1-0DA1-4997-83AA-57B12685676D?region=ru
> ====
>
The Zoobank issue is troublesome.

But Wikipedia? That can be dealt with. Wikipedians, to your stations! Make
sure that it is clear to any who go to those articles the incredibly
problematic nature of these names.

Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
Email: tholtz@umd.edu   Phone: 301-405-4084
Office: Centreville 1216
Senior Lecturer, Vertebrate Paleontology
Dept. of Geology, University of Maryland
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/
Fax: 301-314-9661

Faculty Director, Science & Global Change Program, College Park Scholars
http://www.geol.umd.edu/sgc
Fax: 301-314-9843

Mailing Address:        Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
                        Department of Geology
                        Building 237, Room 1117
                        University of Maryland
                        College Park, MD 20742 USA