Australian Journal of Herpetology

The Australian Journal of Herpetology was a scientific journal focused on the field of herpetology. Established in 1981 as a peer-reviewed publication by the Australian Herpetologists League, the journal then published two issues.

Australian Journal of Herpetology
DisciplineHerpetology
  • Issues 1–2: yes
  • Issues 3–4 and supplemental series: no
LanguageEnglish
Edited byRichard W. Wells
Publication details
History1981–1985
Publisher
  • Australian Herpetologists League (issues 1–2)
  • Australian Biological Services (issues 3–4 and supplemental series)
 (Australia)
Standard abbreviations
ISO 4Aust. J. Herpetol.
Indexing
ISSN0728-4683

In what became known as the "Wells and Wellington affair", the journal's editor, Richard W. Wells, took control of the Australian Journal of Herpetology and published three nonpeer-reviewed papers between 1983 and 1985. Coauthored by himself and C. Ross Wellington, the papers reorganized the taxonomy of all of Australia's and New Zealand's amphibians and reptiles and proposed over 700 changes to the binomial nomenclature of the region's herpetofauna. The herpetological community reacted strongly to Wells and Wellington's actions and eventually brought a case to the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature to suppress the scientific names used by Wells and Wellington. After four years of arguments, the commission opted not to vote on the case leaving some of Wells and Wellington's names available.

Background

Binomial nomenclature, the widely used system of identifying distinct taxa through Latin names, is related to and distinct from the study of taxonomy, the description and arrangement of these different taxa in relationship to one another.[1] Changes to taxonomy, whether subject to peer review or not, are regarded as reliant on the discretion of subsequent researchers who may choose to incorporate them into or ignore them in future works on the basis of their scientific rigor.[2][3] Changes to zoological nomenclature, meanwhile, are governed by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature's (ICZN) International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (the Code), of which a key component is the Principle of Priority: that "[t]he valid name of a taxon is the oldest available name applied to it".[lower-alpha 1][2][4] Thus the publication of a new name, so long as it complies with Code requirements but regardless of the quality of the source in which it appears, establishes it as a name of scientific record.[2]

The Australian Journal of Herpetology was an academic journal in the field of herpetology (the study of amphibians and reptiles). It was founded by the Australian Herpetologists League which was based out of Sydney and was established with the goal of producing the journal.[5] The journal's editorial board consisted of three Australian researchers: Dr. Harold Heatwole, an associate professor at the University of New England (UNE), Dr. Jeffrey Miller, also of UNE, and Dr. Max King of the Australian National University.[6] The journal's editor was Richard W. Wells, a first-year student pursuing a Bachelor of Science degree in biology at UNE.[5][7] Its editorial board refereed submitted manuscripts and, once accepted, sent them to Wells for publication.[5] Because of Wells's enrollment at UNE, the Australian Journal of Herpetology was able to list a mailing address at the university.[5]

Publication

Issues one and two of the first volume of the Australian Journal of Herpetology were released in 1981 and "contained a broad spectrum of conventional herpetology papers from both amateur and professional authors."[5] The journal gained individual and institutional subscribers in Australia and abroad.[5] Wells did not complete his first year at UNE and moved to Sydney.[5]

For two years, the journal did not release any further issues.[5] During this time, the editorial board continued to forward accepted manuscripts to Wells who maintained his UNE address at this time.[5] Then, without warning, a 56-page double issue consisting of a single article, "A Synopsis of the Class Reptilia in Australia" by Wells and C. Ross Wellington was published dated December 31, 1983.[lower-alpha 2][5][11] The paper reassessed the taxonomy of Australia's entire reptile class; in doing so, Wells and Wellington named 33 novel genera and raised eight further genera from synonym status and established 214 additional species, either by elevating subspecies or resurrecting synonyms.[5] The herpetologist Michael J. Tyler described the paper as including "more taxonomic changes [to Australia's herpetofauna] than had been proposed by all other authors in the previous decade."[12] This issue of the journal listed Wells as the managing editor and Wellington as the advertising sales manager, a change from the first two issues.[13] Further, the journal stated that copyright was now held by the entity Australian Biological Services.[13]

A single-issue supplemental series to the Australian Journal of Herpetology was released in 1985, dated March 1.[5][9][13] At first, only spiralbound printouts of the issue were reported as being available although in September 1985, several professionally printed copies were distributed in Brisbane.[5] The issue contained two articles, both coauthored by Wells and Wellington. The first, "A Classification of the Amphibia and Reptilia of Australia", reassessed Australia's amphibians, naming at least 57 novel genera, resurrecting nine more from synonym status, naming 146 novel species, and resurrecting 110 from synonym status.[5][9] The second, "A Synopsis of the Amphibia and Reptilia of New Zealand", offered a similar treatment to New Zealand's amphibian and reptile classes, naming four novel genera and elevating or describing six new species.[8][10] Among other references, "A Classification of the Amphibia and Reptilia of Australia" cited over 500 alleged papers, some ostensibly nearly 100 pages long, written primarily by Wells in 1983 and 1984 in the supposed journal Australian Herpetologist.[5][8] Neither Australian Herpetologist nor the hundreds of papers purportedly published therein were reported as having been available at any major Australian libraries or listed in the Australian Bibliographic Network as of 1985.[8] The first article also referred to several specimens housed in the "Australian Zoological Museum" which was Wells's private collection.[14]

Rationales and responses

Wells and Wellington's justifications

Wells and Wellington, the latter a teacher at Blaxland High School, stated that they did "years of research" before publishing their first paper.[15] Wellington said in 1984 that he and Wells self-published their work due to a dispute with the Australian Museum, to which the pair had donated several specimens.[15] Nonetheless, Wellington said that the museum had prevented him and Wells from using its reptile collections for their research, further saying that,

"It became obvious to us that there were people in the know who were keeping a lot of things to themselves [...] Our studies showed that there were many animals which were very distinctive and should have full specific status. Because some scientists were suppressing this for their own ends, these animals were suffering. How can you talk about conserving animals when you don't even know they exist?"[15]

Australia's low population density, uneven population distribution, and high biodiversity resulted in its herpetofauna going more understudied in depth than that of other continents.[2] G. B. Monteith described Wells and Wellington's justification for their papers as "a radical conservation ethic" and wrote that their intent appeared to be based on the belief that describing individual populations as distinct species would hasten their conservation.[5] Wells and Wellington stated in the introduction to their first paper that they hoped their work would be taken "not as anarchistic taxonomic vandalism, but as a decisive step intended to stir others into action."[11] Wells and Wellington intended to encourage others to generate research either to ratify their conclusions or counter them, either way putting out material to further understanding of reptile and amphibian life in the region.[2]

Initial reactions

All three members of the editorial board of the Australian Journal of Herpetology resigned and wrote letters to the editor of the Herpetological Review to clarify that Wells and Wellington's papers had been self-published, had not undergone peer review, and that the journal was no longer affiliated with UNE past its second issue.[5][6][7] Heatwole also encouraged authors whose papers had been accepted for future issues of the journal to send their work elsewhere, as Wells was unresponsive to calls to return their manuscripts to them.[7]

Tony Thulborn described reactions from professional herpetologists to Wells and Wellington's actions as ranging "from disbelief to outrage."[13] News of the pair's first paper and the fallout of its publication was reported throughout 1984 in several New South Wales newspapers, including the Illawarra Mercury, the Blue Mountains Gazette, and the Sydney Morning Herald, with the latter saying that the events were "one of the most interesting scientific bun-fights in Australia's history."[15][16]

Wells and Wellington's combined work brought forth more than 700 changes to the binomial nomenclature of Australia's reptiles and amphibians, until this point believed to include around 900 species.[8] Multiple herpetologists described what they interpreted as being issues with Wells and Wellington's species descriptions including that the pair described species without providing adequate diagnostic characteristics, established new species without identifying or examining type species, and naming species in trivial ways (including, for instance, naming a species after Darth Vader).[5][6][13] Gordon C. Grigg, president of the Australian Society of Herpetologists, and Richard Shine wrote in a letter to the Herpetological Review cosigned by over 150 other herpetologists that "the effect of these [Wells and Wellington's] publications, if taken seriously, would be to destabilise permanently the nomenclature of the Australian herpetofauna."[17] In September 1984, the Australian Society of Herpetologists elected to petition the ICZN to suppress the names used by Wells and Wellington.[17]

Word of the situation spread outside of the world of herpetology in 1985 when Monteith, an entomologist, reported on the situation in the Australian Entomological Society News Bulletin.[5][18] Monteith's article, "Terrorist Tactics in Taxonomy", was subsequently republished in newsletters covering other fields of taxonomic study.[5] In 1986, Thulborn reported on the situation in the international journal Nature.[13]

ICZN case 2531

The ICZN published Grigg's case for suppressing the names provided in Wells and Wellington's three articles in the June 1987 issue of their journal, the Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature.[8] Case 2531 received "[s]trong arguments" from at least 91 writers and was characterized after the fact by "the usual professional decorum being notable by its absence in some of the attacks upon Wells and Wellington."[2]

In the initial case to suppress the names, Grigg wrote of several specific issues with the Wells and Wellington works. He wrote that Wells and Wellington's claim that they examined almost 40,000 specimens (translating to more than ten each day every day for ten years) was unlikely.[8] He further wrote that 205 subspecies or synonyms taken from a 1983 book by Harold Cogger et al. were elevated or resurrected to species status with no further discussion and that several museums outside Australia confirmed with him that specimens in their collections that Wells and Wellington stated they had examined had never been lent or shown to them.[8] Grigg stated that because of the quality of the underlying taxonomy in their papers, many taxonomists would likely reject the nomenclature contained therein while non-taxonomists unaware of the situation surrounding Wells and Wellington's work might accept the nomenclature, leading to nomenclatural destabilization and requiring piecemeal acceptance or refutation of all of the hundreds of changes offered by the pair.[8]

The researcher Glenn M. Shea wrote that the names in Wells and Wellington's first paper, even those accompanied by "inadequate or erroneous" diagnoses, fulfilled the requirements of the Code and were thus available.[19] However, Shea listed 43 species from Wells and Wellington's second paper whose diagnoses did not differentiate them from the populations that the pair was attempting to split them from, and also identified three species whose diagnoses were reliant on works that were still in press at the time of Shea's comment (late 1987).[19] Shea identified several proposed species whose holotypes were collected from outside the species' proposed ranges and several well-known populations of species who were suddenly without names based on Wells and Wellington's diagnoses.[19]

The researcher Jonathon Stone wrote that the ICZN permitting Wells and Wellington's names would set a negative precedent for subsequent researchers to enact nomenclatural changes without peer review.[20] Several researchers rejected the argument that suppressing Wells and Wellington's names was an act of censorship.[20][21]

The Australian Museum's Allan E. Greer rejected calls to suppress Wells and Wellington's names, noting that the Australian Museum, Cogger, Shea, and others had already (by 1988) used some of the names in subsequent research.[20] Allain Dubois and colleagues argued that the names should not be suppressed because it was not within the ICZN's purview or power to make taxonomic (versus nomenclatural) judgements; this sentiment was shared by a number of other authors.[21] They wrote that many of Wells and Wellington's names could be rendered synonymous or unavailable through other means: proposed taxonomic changes like elevating subspecies to species were likely to be rejected by the world zoological community (rendering the names moot) and taxa lacking descriptions would automatically be considered nomina nuda per the provisions of the Code.[21] However, Dubois and colleagues proposed that in some cases it might be advantageous for the ICZN to consider suppressing individual names on a case-by-case basis.[21]

In 1989, the researcher Kraig Adler published the book Contributions to the History of Herpetology; its index of herpetologists by John S. Applegarth intentionally omitted Wells and Wellington on the basis that their works were "inconsistent with acceptable practices of taxonomy".[22] Philippe Bouchet and colleagues at the French National Museum of Natural History described Applegarth's attitude as akin to "the Stalinist falsification of history" and by extension, asked facetiously if Wells and Wellington "should be physically eliminated using an ice-pick".[22]

The ICZN decided the case in September 1991.[23] The commission wrote that while Wells and Wellington had ignored many of the Code's ethical tenets and while taxonomic arguments against the pair's works were strong, the ICZN did not have the power to rule on the case on those grounds and thus opted not to vote on the case, thereby closing it.[23]

Legacy
Wells and Wellington's specific name for the Manning River snapping turtle is recognized as the senior synonym.[24]

Wells and Wellington's three Australian Journal of Herpetology articles and their backlash are sometimes referred to as the "Wells and Wellington affair".[18] The immediate result of the ICZN opting not to vote on their case was to leave researchers of Australian herpetofauna with "a certain amount of detective work to determine which Wells and Wellington names are available, and for what species".[2]

Although Wells and Wellington indicated that they intended to write reassessments of fish in Australia, reptiles in Papua New Guinea, and global herpetological taxa similar to their three papers in the Australian Journal of Herpetology, Wells withdrew somewhat from the world of herpetology after the affair.[5] Wells and Wellington republished several of their Australian Journal of Herpetology descriptions, some with slight changes, in the following decades.[3] The first instance of this was apparently in the Australian Herpetologist (of which no copies are known) in the late 1980s; later, Wells alone published other taxonomic works in another vanity journal, the Australian Biodiversity Record, in the 2000s.[5][3] Both Wells and Wellington have occasionally weighed in on other ICZN cases or defended names from their Australian Journal of Herpetology papers as senior synonyms.[3][25]

In its case decision, the ICZN noted that the affair highlighted the need to update its Code to account for the effects that desktop publishing was having and would continue to have on the availability of scientific names.[23] Nonetheless, Van Wallach, Wolfgang Wüster, and Donald G. Broadley wrote that 25 years after the affair, "taxonomy remain[ed] as vulnerable to acts of nomenclatural vandalism as it was then".[26] Wells and Wellington's case was cited during a different ICZN case initiated nearly three decades later, concerning the taxonomic work of another amateur Australian herpetologist, Raymond Hoser.[27] Hoser, who self-publishes on Australian herpetofauna in his publication, the Australasian Journal of Herpetology, gave the Pilbara death adder its scientific name (Acanthophis wellsi) in honour of Wells.[27][28]

In 2001, John Iverson, Scott Thomson, and Arthur Georges evaluated the changes proposed by Wells and Wellington to Australian turtles and found that just three of them represented available names.[14] In 2017, the Turtle Taxonomy Working Group recognized one subgeneric, one specific, and one subspecific name originally proposed by Wells and Wellington as being valid senior synonyms among the world's turtle taxa.[29]

Notes
  1. An available name is one which has not been explicitly suppressed by the ICZN and otherwise fulfills the requirements of the Code.[4]
  2. Although dated for the end of 1983, the work is usually cited as "Wells & Wellington, 1984", including by the authors themselves in subsequent works.[8][9][10]

References
  1. de Queiroz, K. (2006). "The PhyloCode and the Distinction between Taxonomy and Nomenclature". Systematic Biology. 55 (1): 160–162. doi:10.1080/10635150500431221. ISSN 1076-836X.
  2. Williams, D.; Wüster, W.; Fry, B. G. (December 2006). "The good, the bad and the ugly: Australian snake taxonomists and a history of the taxonomy of Australia's venomous snakes". Toxicon. 48 (7): 919–930. doi:10.1016/j.toxicon.2006.07.016. ISSN 0041-0101.
  3. Cogger, H.; Shea, G.; Couper, P. (March 2017). "Comment (Case 3601) — Some matters arising from the Case and the broader issues involved and the need to remove ambiguity in Chapter 3 of the Code". Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature. 73 (2–4): 106–112. doi:10.21805/bzn.v73i2.a5. ISSN 0007-5167.
  4. International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (2012). "International Code of Zoological Nomenclature". The Code Online (4th ed.). International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. ISBN 0-85301-006-4. Retrieved March 19, 2020.
  5. Monteith, G. B. (September 1985). "Terrorist tactics in taxonomy" (PDF). Australian Systematic Botany Society Newsletter. 44. pp. 1–5. ISSN 1839-7522. Archived (PDF) from the original on March 17, 2020.
  6. King, M.; Miller, J. (March 1985). "[Letter to the editor]" (PDF). Herpetological Review. 16 (1): 4–5. ISSN 0018-084X.
  7. Heatwole, H. (March 1985). "[Letter to the editor]" (PDF). Herpetological Review. 16 (1): 6. ISSN 0018-084X.
  8. The President, Australian Society of Herpetologists [Grigg, G.] (June 1987). "Case 2531. Three works by Richard W. Wells and C. Ross Wellington: proposed suppression for nomenclatural purposes". Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature. 44 (2): 116–121. doi:10.5962/bhl.part.287. ISSN 0007-5167.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  9. Wells, R. W.; Wellington, C. R. (March 1985). "A classification of the Amphibia and Reptilia of Australia" (PDF). Australian Journal of Herpetology, Supplemental Series. 1: 1–61. ISSN 0728-4683. Archived (PDF) from the original on October 17, 2019.
  10. Wells, R. W.; Wellington, C. R. (March 1985). "A synopsis of the Amphibia and Reptilia of New Zealand" (PDF). Australian Journal of Herpetology, Supplemental Series. 1: 62–64. ISSN 0728-4683. Archived (PDF) from the original on October 17, 2019.
  11. Wells, R. W.; Wellington, C. R. (December 1983). "A synopsis of the class Reptilia in Australia". Australian Journal of Herpetology. 1 (3–4): 73–129. ISSN 0728-4683.
  12. Tyler, M. J. (September 1985). "Nomenclature of the Australian herpetofauna: Anarchy rules O.K." (PDF). Herpetological Review. 16 (3): 69. ISSN 0018-084X.
  13. Thulborn, T. (May 1986). "Taxonomic tangles from Australia". Nature. 321 (6065): 13–14. doi:10.1038/321013a0. ISSN 1476-4687.
  14. Iverson, J. B.; Thomson, S. A.; Georges, A. (September 2001). "Validity of Taxonomic Changes for Turtles Proposed by Wells and Wellington". Journal of Herpetology. 35 (3): 361–368. doi:10.2307/1565953. ISSN 0022-1511.
  15. Roberts, G. (October 20, 1984). "Reptiles score a new status, but on rocky ground". The Sydney Morning Herald. pp. 8–9. ISSN 0312-6315 – via Newspapers.com.
  16. Gans, C. (March 1985). "Comment on two checklists" (PDF). Herpetological Review. 16 (1): 6–7. ISSN 0018-084X.
  17. Grigg, G. C.; Shine, R. (December 1985). "An open letter to all herpetologists" (PDF). Herpetological Review. 16 (4): 96–97. ISSN 0018-084X.
  18. Fletcher, M. J.; Monteith, G. B. (March 2016). "History of the Australian Entomological Society". Austral Entomology. 55 (2): 121–131. doi:10.1111/aen.12196. ISSN 1326-6756.
  19. Shea, G. M. (December 1987). "Comment on the proposed suppression for nomenclatural purposes of three works by Richard W. Wells and C. Ross Wellington". Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature. 44 (4): 257–261. doi:10.5962/bhl.part.349. ISSN 0007-5167.
  20. Ingram, G. J.; Covacevich, J.; Greer, A. E.; Stone, J. (March 1988). "Comments on the proposed suppression for nomenclature of three works by R. W. Wells and C. R. Wellington". Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature. 45 (1): 52–54. ISSN 0007-5167.
  21. Hutchinson, M. N.; Dubois, A.; Bour, R.; Brygoo, E.-R.; Lescure, J.; Bouchet, P.; Tillier, S.; Meyer-Rochow, V. B.; Birrel, C. J.; Dodds, L.; Evans, P.; Nield, E. J.; Peters, R.; Sell, D.; Shannon, D.; King, M.; Holthuis, L. B.; Tyler, M. J. (June 1988). "Comments on the proposed suppression for nomenclature of three works by R. W. Wells and C. R. Wellington". Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature. 45 (2): 145–153. ISSN 0007-5167.
  22. Bouchet, P.; Bour, R.; Dubois, A.; Goujet, D.; Hugot, J. P.; Pierre, J.; Tillier, S. (June 1990). "Further Comment On The Proposed Suppression For Nomenclature Of Three Works By R. W. Wells And C. R. Wellington". Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature. 47 (2): 139–140. doi:10.5962/bhl.part.2683. ISSN 0007-5167.
  23. International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (December 1991). "Decision of the Commission. Three works by Richard W. Wells and C. Ross Wellington: proposed suppression for nomenclatural purposes". Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature. 48 (4): 337–338. ISSN 0007-5167.
  24. Le, M.; Reid, B. N.; McCord, W. P.; Naro-Maciel, E.; Raxworthy, C. J.; Amato, G.; Georges, A. (August 2013). "Resolving the phylogenetic history of the short-necked turtles, genera Elseya and Myuchelys (Testudines: Chelidae) from Australia and New Guinea". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 68 (2): 251–258. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2013.03.023. ISSN 1055-7903.
  25. Wellington, R. (November 2016). "Acanthophis cryptamydros Maddock, Ellis, Doughty, Smith & Wüster, 2015 is an invalid junior synonym of Acanthophis lancasteri Wells & Wellington, 1985 (Squamata, Elapidae)". Bionomina. 10 (1): 74–75. doi:10.11646/bionomina.10.1.5. ISSN 1179-7657.
  26. Wallach, V.; Wüster, W.; Broadley, D. G. (September 2009). "In praise of subgenera: taxonomic status of cobras of the genus Naja Laurenti (Serpentes: Elapidae)". Zootaxa. 2236 (1): 26–36. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.2236.1.2. ISSN 1175-5334.
  27. Hoser, R.; Rhodin, A. G. J.; Kaiser, H.; van Dijk, P. P.; Wüster, W.; O'Shea, M.; Archer, M.; Auliya, M.; Boitani, L.; Bour, R.; Clausnitzer, V.; Contreras-MacBeath, T.; Crother, B. I.; Daza, J. M.; Driscoll, C. A.; Flores-Villela, O.; Frazier, J.; Fritz, U.; Gardner, A. L.; Gascon, C.; Georges, A.; Glaw, F.; Grazziotin, F. G.; Groves, C. P.; Haszprunar, G.; Havaš, P.; Hero, J.-M.; Hoffmann, M.; Hoogmoed, M. S.; Horne, B. D.; Iverson, J. B.; Jäch, M.; Jenkins, C. L.; Jenkins, R. K. B.; Kiester, A. R.; Keogh, J. S.; Lacher, T. E., Jr.; Lovich, J. E.; Luiselli, L.; Mahler, D. L.; Mallon, D.; Mast, R.; McDiarmid, R. W.; Measey, J.; Mittermeier, R. A.; Molur, S.; Mosbrugger, V.; Murphy, R. W.; Naish, D.; Niekisch, M.; Ota, H.; Parham, J. F.; Parr, M. J.; Pilcher, N. J.; Pine, R. H.; Rylands, A. B.; Sanderson, J. G.; Savage, J. M.; Schleip, W.; Scrocchi, G. J.; Shaffer, H. B.; Smith, E. N.; Sprackland, R.; Stuart, S. N.; Vetter, H.; Vitt, L. J.; Waller, T.; Webb, G.; Wilson, E. O.; Zaher, H.; Thomson, S. (March 2015). "Comment on Spracklandus Hoser, 2009 (Reptilia, Serpentes, Elapidae): request for confirmation of the availability of the generic name and for the nomenclatural validation of the journal in which it was published". Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature. 72 (1): 61–78. doi:10.21805/bzn.v72i1.a12. ISSN 0007-5167.
  28. Borrell, B. (March 2007). "The big name hunters". Nature. 446 (7133): 253–255. doi:10.1038/446253a. ISSN 1476-4687.
  29. Rhodin, A. G. J.; Inverson, J. B.; Roger, B.; Fritz, U.; Georges, A.; Shaffer, H. B.; van Dijk, P. P. (August 2017). "Turtles of the world, 2017 update: Annotated checklist and atlas of taxonomy, synonymy, distribution, and conservation status" (PDF). Chelonian Research Monographs. 7: 1–292. doi:10.3854/crm.7.checklist.atlas.v8.2017. ISSN 1088-7105.
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