Opinion on ‘papers and nomenclatural Code-compliance’

Abstract

Denzer & Kaiser (2025) recently published an article in Bionomina in which they criticise Frétey (2024) for using nomina that have been subject to controversy in the herpetological community for over two decades (see Wüster et al. 2001) because they were created in an unscientifically and unethical manner. These nomina were created in works published in a self-published journal, apparently without peer review, as they are rarely based on own scientific work but on findings of others, contain plagiarism and long passages that have been ‘copied and pasted’ even within a single work (see Denzer et al. 2016) and foul and insulting remarks towards other authors. Although this is not a matter of nomenclature but rather of bad science and ethics, such works cannot be ignored by the scientific community if they contain nomenclatural content published in accordance with the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (Anonymous 1999, hereafter ‘the Code’). Therefore, these papers are referred to as ‘taxonomic vandalism’ (Jäch 2007a‒b). Kaiser et al. (2013) recommended ignoring those nomina or, if necessary, overwriting them, hence, setting aside the Code’s most significant principle of priority. According to an impact analysis by Wüster et al. (2021), this recommendation has been accepted almost unanimously within the herpetological community. These authors argue that the support by “[…] multiple professional societies provided the institutional backing and moral authority that empowers subsequent authors to follow their taxonomic judgement [...]”, hence ignoring unscientifically created works and nomina coined therein would be perfectly in line with the spirit of the Code as given in its Preamble. Since the Code does not rule upon taxonomic judgment, the freedom of taxonomic judgement is left untouched. However, referring to the Code’s Preamble, article 23.2 clearly states that “[…] In accordance with the objects of the Code (see Preamble), the Principle of Priority is to be used to promote stability […]” (Anonymous 1999).