A warning note on frequent mistakes in the authority of scientific names of fish

Making parentheses mistakes in the authority of scientific names of fish is quite frequent. To determine this kind of errors, titles in Cumhuriyet Dönemi Su Ürünleri Bibliyografisi book and abstracts in ASFA (Aquatic Sciences and Fisheries Abstracts) in year of 1998 were studied. Both datasets gave unexpectedly high percentages of authority errors. For some species, the error percentages were up to 96%. Logically, omitting parentheses was more common than adding them. These statistics should be taken into account in the authority of scientific names. To prevent these kinds of mistakes, some recent references and websites should be taken into consideration before using authority of fish.

___

Aquatic Sciences and Fisheries Abstracts (ASFA). 1998. Biological Sciences and Living Resources. Volume 28 (No: 1-11)

Eschmeyer, W.N. 1998. Catalog of Fishes (I-III). California Academy of Sciences., San Francisco, 2905 pp.

http://www.calacademy.org/research/ichthyology/catalog

http://www.fishbase.org

International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature 1985. “International Code of Zoological Nomenclature. Third Edition. 338 pp.

Timur, M., Çolak, S. and Doğan, K. 2003. Cumhuriyet Dönemi Su Ürünleri Bibliyografisi. İ.Ü. Su Ürünleri Fakültesi Yayınları, Rektörlük No: 4406, Fakülte No:4.

Wheeler, A. 1992. A list of the common and scientific names of fishes of the British Isles. J.Fish Biol., 41 (Suppl. A): 1-37