Frog deja vu

While using iSpecies to explore some names (e.g., Sooglossus sechellensis in the Frost et al. amphibian tree mentioned in the last post, I stumbled across two papers that both described a new genus of frog for the same two taxa in the Seychelles. The papers (doi:10.1111/j.1095-8312.2007.00800.x and www.connotea.org/uri/6567cfd7531a77588ee62d78e7b4359b) were published within a couple of months of each other.

Was about to blog this, when I discovered that Christopher Taylor had beaten me to it with his post Sooglossidae: Deja vu all over again. Amongst the commentary on this post is a note by Darren Naish (now here) pointing to an interesting article by Jerald D. Harris entitled ‘Published Works’ in the electronic age: recommended amendments to Articles 8 and 9 of the Code, in which he states:

I propose to the Commission that, under Article 78.3 (‘Amendments to the Code’), Articles 8 and 9 of the current Code require both pro- and retroactive (to the effective date of the Fourth Edition, 1 January 2000) modification to accommodate the following issue: documents published electronically with DOI numbers and that are followed by hard-copy printing and distribution be exempt from Article 9.8 and be recognized as valid, citable sources of zoological taxonomic information and that their electronic publication dates be considered definitive.

It's an interesting read.