Category talk:Species by year of formal description

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History of Science

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Tree of Life

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what's the point edit

Latest comment: 13 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Other than in the pursuit of trivial interest, does listing diverse taxa simply by when they were described serve any real intellectual purpose? J.H.McDonnell (talk) 23:52, 18 December 2010 (UTC)Reply

naming of category tree edit

Latest comment: 10 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Assuming this tree does have importance beyond trivia, shouldn't it be 'Species by year of first formal description'? Mayumashu (talk) 03:22, 5 December 2012 (UTC)Reply

The year of description is important for the principle of priority; if a taxonomist decided two species would be better treated as one, the name of the early described species is retained. The year of description is a fundamental piece of taxonomic data. The rules of priority work a little different for plants and animals; the date the species name was published determines priority for animals, while the date of the publication of a combination of genus+species determines the priority date for plants (i.e., a plant described by Linnaeus in 1753, but moved to a different genus in 1950, has a priority date of 1950). The current title of the category covers both plants and animals better than "first formal description" would. Plantdrew (talk) 20:46, 23 March 2014 (UTC)Reply

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