Further to my message below, and at the risk of minor self promotion, he/one
could also use my global genera compilation (not 100% complete but not too bad)
to discover that Stilbospora is a fungus in the first place...

http://www.marine.csiro.au/mirrorsearch/ir_search.go?searchtxt=Stilbospora&hlevel=genus

Or for example if it is misspelled (e.g. Stibospora for Stilbospora):

http://www.marine.csiro.au/mirrorsearch/ir_search.go?searchtxt=Stibospora&hlevel=genus

Hopefully this is a useful product as a first step towards, or a component of, a
global TNRS (taxonomic name resolution service) as previously mentioned.

Regards - Tony

________________________________________ From: taxa...@mailman.nhm.ku.edu [taxa...@mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On
Behalf Of Tony...@csiro.au [Tony...@csiro.au] Sent: Saturday, 18 February 2012 9:32 AM To: step...@yahoo.co.nz; arma...@gmail.com;
taxa...@mailman.nhm.ku.edu Subject: [ExternalEmail] Re: [Taxacom] validation of taxon names

Dear all,

Of course I agree with Stephen and Chris that the work needs to be done, funded,
and by relevant specialists. However where that work has been done, the issue is
then how to access it. For example Armand asked:

The answer is here (providing you accept MycoBank's opinion):

http://www.mycobank.org/MycoTaxo.aspx?Link=T&Rec=194690

Species: Stilbospora angustata Pers. 1801

MycoBank's opinion: this name is a synonym of Truncatella angustata (Pers.) S. Hughes 1958
(MB307155) ... Obligate synonym(s): Truncatella angustata (Pers.) S. Hughes 1958 [LEG; MB307155] Pestalotia angustata (Pers.) Arx 1981 [LEG; MB115996] Sporidesmium angustatum (Pers.) Corda 1829 [LEG; MB229553] ... Taxonomic synonym(s): Pestalotia affinis Sacc. & Voglino 1885 [LEG; MB201735] Phragmotrichum lignicola Corda 1838 [LEG; MB178084] Alternaria lignicola (Corda) Fr. 1849 [LEG; MB507274] Pestalotia lignicola Cooke 1871 [LEG; MB208762] Seiridium lignicola (Corda) Sacc. 1884 [LEG; MB182142] Pestalotia truncata var. lignicola (Cooke) Grove 1937 [LEG; MB255200] Pestalotia truncata Lév. 1846 [LEG; MB357321] Truncatella truncata (Lév.) Steyaert 1949 [LEG; MB291629]

So the question is really, has someone you can trust placed such opinions
online, and if so where, and how can these be addressed in any integrated
manner.

Of course there are associated questions - which sources do you trust the most,
which have been updated most recently and on what evidence, what do do when
equally trusted sources give diverging opinions, and so on, but where the "work"
has been done it hopefully does not have to be repeated from scratch for every
enquiry. In essence we are using the nomenclators and taxonomic specialists as
our proxy to the original literature, and for their expertise in wighing and
assessing the available evidence and coming to appropriate conclusions (at least
for today).

If Armand would care to give a few more cases one could presumably look for
patterns and see which resources are the most appropriate to answer his
questions. He could even then construct an automated distributed search (similar
to the ING portal described earlier) which would query a chosen set of resources
and see what they hold. For example if I know something is an extant fish I
would try Eschmeyer's Catalog, for an alga AlgaeBase, for a fly Systema
Dipterororum (except that just now you can't), and so on...

Cheers - Tony

________________________________________ From: taxa...@mailman.nhm.ku.edu [taxa...@mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On
Behalf Of Stephen Thorpe [step...@yahoo.co.nz] Sent: Saturday, 18 February 2012 8:10 AM To: Armand Turpel; taxa...@mailman.nhm.ku.edu Subject: Re: [Taxacom] validation of taxon names

to answer these sorts of questions requires a *vast* amount of work, checking
names against the original primary literature, work that is increasingly
difficult to get funded ...

________________________________ From: Armand Turpel <arma...@gmail.com> To: taxa...@mailman.nhm.ku.edu Sent: Friday, 17 February 2012 10:25 PM Subject: Re: [Taxacom] validation of taxon names

I'm not a taxonomist or a biologist but a simple computer scientist who have to fight nightmares when taxonomy hits his door.

There are different levels of validation of taxons in our database or species observation files we receive. Here a few examples:

Crouan{?} ex Nyl. > ????

SULZER > Sulzer

Schmitt > Schmit, Schmith, Schmidt, Schmitd, Schmid : we need the right Schmi*

Muller > Müller, Mueller: Some one couldn't find ü on his keyboard

1903 > 1907, 1902 or no year

(Schrank, 1789) > Schrank, 1789

Bombasta testosterosa (Schwarzeneggerii, 1971) > Family of Bodyaceae or Brainaceae or, hey, what's this?

Stilbospora angustata Pers. 1801 > Is it a synonym and if yes of what?

Onthophagus somalicus > Is it a homonym?

Then there are lsids, genetics and quantic effects ...., next week as promised!

Nevertheless I enjoy this discussion which, in my opinion, is really necessary.

a+ arm

On 17/02/2012 00:10, Richard Zander wrote: