Re: What do we do now?

[Neil Clark <NCLARK@museum.gla.ac.uk>]

> So the question is; presuming that the specimen never makes it to a museum
> collection, is any work which includes it in a description of species X
> admissable for a thesis and/or a publication?  Has anybody had experience of
> this sort of thing?  Are there any rules?

Yes, I have had experience of something like this, where a specimen 
is not in a registered museum.  I wrote a paper on the specimen, but 
was unable to designate it as a new species because it would not be 
readily available for comparative research.  It is a problem, but I seem to 
remeber that there is no actual rule in the ICZN (don't know about 
the ICBN) that states that it is essential to have the specimen in 
public ownership, just that it is highly recommended.  I haven't had 
time to browse the relevant passages of the new draft ICZN that is on 
the web, but I will try and do that soon.  The journal I wrote the 
paper for actually called the owners of the specimen to ask if it 
would be available for research by others even though it wasn't used 
as a type...only figured.  I think that it is really 
up to whichever journal to impose whatever restriction on the 
publishing of new material, whether it should neccessarily be in 
public ownership.  In an ideal world, the specimen should be in a 
public institution where there is no restrictions based on the whims 
of the private owner (although access is often restricted by the whims of 
the public curator (within the remit and policies of the governing 
body of the institution of employ, of course)!).

Neil