Posted by:
doorgunner
at Tue Jan 6 21:54:52 2004 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by doorgunner ]
I don't believe this issue will ever be settled, Terry. Scientists are not God, even though they might like to think they are. The splitting of genera has been going on since Linnaeus, and I doubt there will ever be an end to it. Whether an "expert" has an axe go grind or a name to make or, simply, a paper to write, they will keep on reclassifying ad nauseam. For the hobbyist's purpose, the old standby names serve quite well, even when speaking of such declassified subspecies as E.o. williamsi or L.t. yumensis. At least we know what the heck we're talking about, and who's to say definitively that we're wrong? Names serve to classify, but hobbyists need some kind of stable nomenclature to identify. If you note an anti-scientific bias in my words, you're right.
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