I don't mean to say "I told you so"...

This morning I posted about how taxonomy underlies all else in biology, with respect to manta rays.  As if to make my point, an article is just out in Nature suggesting that the genus Drosophila - better known as fruit flies - may be revised such that one of science's best known model species - Drosophila melanogaster - gets kicked out of its genus!  The split hasn't taken place just yet, but the door is open, and if it were to happen, D. melanogaster might well become Sophophora melanogaster during the reorganisation.  Of the implications for the enormous literature and the many genetic databases that are heavily built on the current taxonomy, one Drosophila scientist is quoted in Nature as saying simply (but most unscientifically) "Oh my God".

What high drama!  And you thought taxonomy was only arcane monographs penned by bespectacled formalin-smelling old men in the basements of museums...

Dalton, R. (2009). A fly by any other name Nature DOI: 10.1038/457368a

Comments

[Siglind]

Ha, and the scientist that said "Oh my god" formally objected to preserve the name.

http://iczn.org/content/comments-proposed-conservation-usage-drosophila-fall%C3%A9n-1823-insecta-diptera-3-case-3407

[Al Dove]

Good for her. You know, there are rules and then there are rules; this strikes me as one of those occasions where its probably best not to upset the apple cart, no matter what the ICZN rules say. In that sense I agree with their objection that "this is not a nomenclatural issue and even if it were, there isn’t a nomenclatural or taxonomic need to make this change at this time". In other words - let the sleeping dog lie.