There have been a number of monumental moments in the history of Evolutionary Biology: Darwin's publication of the Origin, the modern synthesis, the invention and development of cladistic methods... and now, we are all about to witness the next milestone. In the August 2008 issue of Systematic Biology, Bond and Stockman have published a paper describing a method for the mathematical delimitation of cohesion species. Although this is interesting in itself, the truly monumental part of the paper is the name they have chosen for this new species: Aptostichus stephencolberti. That's right, Americans, the species has been named after the great Patriot himself. I'm hopeful that this is the first of many contributions that Mr. Colbert will make to our field.
Update: better video
There's also some other great stuff coming online as the issue is being assembled. To me, Lemmon and Lemmon's approach to quantitative biogeography on a continuous landscape is really exciting; we've needed a method like this for some time, especially given recent criticism of nested clade analysis. There's also a dull paper in there about day geckos that you might want to check out.
3 comments:
We truly have reached a new era - the namesakes of species are now able to choose the organism they most identify with, perhaps providing us with "TMI" of their reproductive structures in the process. Nonetheless, I hope Bill Gates is as flattered as Colbert was, when I shamelessly name a new malaria parasite after him...but since he doesn't have a TV show, I'll have to settle for a few Foundation crumbs.
Where's the press for M. angelinajolieae?!
Oops. That should be A. angelinajolieae.
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