[quote=”Peter Finke” post=5172]Dr. Kottelat, who did the scientific descriptions of these three species only lately, in 2005, decided from dead museum specimens to distinguish these three species. It’s the same problem we know from ornithology: The old science of the birds was a pure museum-science. People shot the birds and then science began: measuring, weighting, describing the bodies and so on. We can thank god that this has ended by the protest of many laymen in the late 19. century! But in our fish, we still have that museum-taxonomy. That is the problem. As long as an outdated method of describing new small fish defines the species, we are often incapable of to determine rightly our living fish that has not been assigned with undoubtedly true a location.[/quote]
Hello, Peter,
I understand what you mean by condemning the “outdated method of museum science”. But I think you wrong this method by completely rejecting it. And fortunately it is not true that the “old museum science” including measuring, weighing, describing has ended (but luckily most of the killing on purpose has!).The museum science still has it’s value – in no other way you will be able to make precise measurements, to count feathers (or scales), to compare a great lot of individuals. This would not be possible using living animals – not to speak of the fact that in museum collections you have access to species from regions which might be out of reach today (e.g., due to political facts, due to destruction). You have access to species which already suffered extinction in nature. But I agree with you when you say it must not be the only method to describe species.
The correct and comprehensive description of a taxon is like putting together pieces of a mosaic – every piece is important – museum taxonomy and morphology as well as behavioural studies in nature and captivity, genetics, molecular investigations, DNA-barcoding and so on. Not one of these methods is the ultimative and only one – and none is completely to be abandoned.
An excerpt I love very much, from a wonderful book of John Steinbeck (and Ed Ricketts) – “The log from the sea of Cortez”. To show that I understand that museum taxonomy can not be all ………… but I have to strike a blow for it if you condemn it like you do ……….
[i]”The Mexican sierra [a kind of fish] has ‘XVII-15-IX’ spines in the dorsal fin. These can easily be counted. But if the sierra strikes hard on the line so that our hands are burned, if the fish sounds and nearly escapes and finally comes in over the rail, his colour pulsing and his tail beating the air, a whole new relational external reality has come into being.
The alternative would be to sit in a laboratory, open an evil-smelling jar, remove a stiff colourless fish from formalin solution, count the spines, and write the truth ‘D. XVII-15-IX.’ There you have recorded a reality which cannot be assailed – probably the least important reality concerning either the fish or yourself.”[/i]