Re: labeling fish

[Jota Melgar <76644.2370@compuserve.com>]

Marco Lacerda wrote:

> That's not true, Julio.
>I've already told you that this fish is NOT gephyra.
>The word 'aff.' before gephyra, comes from the Latin aff.= affinis, 
>meaning similar, related to.
>This is the same to say that the fish is NOT gephyra, but a fish 
>RELATED to it.
>So I see no sense in your words when you say that I've 'misidentified' 
>the fish. 

I'm sorry.  I forgot to mention that you already clarified that this is not
Apisto gephyra  but a related species. However, I was referring back to the
ACA convention where you had those fish labeled as Apisto gephyra "Rio
Xingu" and not A. sp. aff. gephyra "Rio Xingu". In any case, that was not
the point I was trying to get across. The point was that wether you give a
new fish an already known scientific name or a commercial name you will
never please everybody.

I don't know enough about the rules of taxonomy to argue in favor or
against the use of sp. aff. for the gephyra. If I had to guess, I would say
that the term sp. aff. is used when the identity of the fish is unknown but
it has a striking similarity with that fish and that further taxonomic
study will decide if it is gephyra or not. I'm not so sure that sp. aff.
gephyra is the same as to say that is NOT gephyra. Hopefully someone can
clarify  the meaning of the term sp. aff.

>On that I agree with you, and I think it is very important to add 
>locality data when labeling new species. In your example, it has been 
>"Rio Xingu".

Yes, that is a very good practice and I do recognize that you always
mention the river where they come from and try to give as much of a
description as possible. 

I'm sorry if I caused you any grievance. That was not my intention. 

Regards
Julio