#Taxonomic vandalism

[snakemanaustralia]

A fake scientist named Jane Melville has engaged in taxonomic vandalism in an attempt to unlawfully rename nine species of Australian dragon lizard.

They are listed below.

The nine illegally coined names are as follows: Lophognathus horneri Melville et al., 2018 is an illegally coined junior synonym of Lophognathus wellingtoni Hoser, 2015 Tympanocryptis argillosa Melville et al. 2019 is an illegally coined junior synonym of Tympanocryptis optus Hoser, 2019. Tympanocryptis darlingensis Chaplin, Wilson, Sumner & Melville, 2023 is an illegally coined junior synonym of Tympanocryptis deniselivingstonae Hoser, 2019 Tympanocryptis hobsoni Chaplin, Wilson, Sumner & Melville, 2023 is an illegally coined junior synonym of Tympanocryptis courtneyleitchae Hoser, 2019 Tympanocryptis einasleighensis Chaplin, Wilson, Sumner & Melville, 2023 is an illegally coined junior synonym of Tympanocryptis karimdaouesi Hoser, 2019 Tympanocryptis osbornei Melville et al. 2019 is an illegally coined junior synonym of Tympanocryptis lineata Peters, 1863. Tympanocryptis petersi Melville et al. 2019 is an illegally coined junior synonym of Tympanocryptis snakebustersorum Hoser, 2019. Tympanocryptis rustica Melville et al. 2019 is an illegally coined junior synonym of Tympanocryptis lachlanheffermani Hoser, 2019. Tympanocryptis tolleyi Melville et al. 2019 is an illegally coined junior synonym of Tympanocryptis vodafone Hoser, 2019. Also it is worth noting that Jane Melville also illegally renamed the genus Melvillesaurea Hoser, 2015 as Tropicagama in 2018 as well. She has been getting people to use that name as correct since then, fully aware that her name is an illegally coined synonym of Melvillesaurea and that Melvillesaurea is in fact the correct genus name.

To learn more, see: Hoser, R. T. 2024. Taxonomic vandalism by Wolfgang Wuster and his gang of thieves. Yet more illegally coined names by the rule breakers for species and genera previously named according to the rules of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature. Australasian Journal of Herpetology 72:47-63. That can be downloaded at: https://www.smuggled.com/AJH-72-pages-47-63.pdf

Also see: Hoser, R. T. 2019 11 new species, 4 new subspecies and a subgenus of Australian Dragon Lizard in the genus Tympanocryptis Peters, 1863, with a warning on the conservation status and long-term survival prospects of some newly named taxa. Australasian Journal of Herpetology 39:23-52. That can be downloaded at: https://www.smuggled.com/issue-39-pages-23-52.pdf

See also: Hoser, R. T. 2019. Richard Shine et al. (1987), Hinrich Kaiser et al. (2013), Jane Melville et al. (2018 and 2019): Australian Agamids and how rule breakers, liars, thieves, taxonomic vandals and law breaking copyright infringers are causing reptile species to become extinct. Australasian Journal of Herpetology 39:23-52. That can be downloaded at: https://www.smuggled.com/issue-39-pages-53-63.pdf

[maratheghost]

til I learned taxonomic vandalism is a thing and not only that, there's what I can only describe as the Tommy Tallarico of Taxonomy, a dude named Raymond Hoser that other scientists hate for stealing research so he can claim to have discovered the most snakes in history

[snakecatchers]

Taxonomic Vandalism by Danielle Edwards and Mark Hutchinson. This week they have renamed in breach of the ICZN Code the following taxa previously named by Snakeman Raymond Hoser in 2020 as follows: Ctenophorus tuniluki = C. maryannmartinekae C. ibiri = C. scottgranti C. cartiwarru = C. scottyjamesi C. tjakalpa = C. danielmani The earlier 2020 names (on right) should be used. See http://www.herp.net

[reptilemanaustralia]

This may look like just another small frog, but it has been one of a number of animals making waves in recent years.  There are lots of species of innocuous small frogs out there and scientists make great strides in telling them apart. But it is not all clear sailing. There is a lot of rivalry and at times this descends into chaos.  The rule is first named is the name and the scientist who makes the discovery is entitled to be recognized for it.

Quite simple really.

But when a scientist of fake scientist doesn’t like the status quo, they may engage in an action called taxonomic vandalism.  This is when they illegally rename the same animal and try to get others to use their name, instead of the correct one. Taxonomic vandalism is dishonest, unethical and also highly illegal. It is a breach of copyright laws and the rules of the International Commission of Zoological Nomenclature, which binds pretty much every government and scientist on the planet.

This has now however discouraged the notorious Wolfgang Wuster of Wales, UK. He has been engaging in taxonomic vandalism for decades and worse still encouraged others to do so.  So it comes as no surprise that the words taxonomic vandalism and Wolfgang Wuster are synonymous.

[reptileparties]

The red spitting Cobra shown above is quite a snake. Largely ignored by science for 200 years, in 2009, the Snakeman Raymond Hoser did some really good science and formally placed it into a brand new genus. That is the spitting Cobra Genus, Spracklandus. A few months later a serial criminal, thief and fake scientist by the name Wolfgang Wuster decided to engage in taxonomic vandalism and rename the same genus. His name Afronaja is an illegally coined junior synonym. Wuster has been on a crusade for the last 30 years to destroy the rules of science and foist his own brand of fake science on the world reptile community.

In 2021 they fought back and ruled his illegally coined name invalid.

[rangi42]

As I said earlier, Hoser has named several taxa after his pet dogs, explaining at length how these noble canines have contributed more to herpetology than have the majority of the world’s researching academics.

“Taxonomic vandalism and the Raymond Hoser problem“

Not your usual callout post, because it’s about snakes and has journal citations instead of screencapped Tumblr posts.

[narelleart]

Do you ever think much about taxonomy?

I know most people that follow me here are aquarium hobbyists, not scientists, so it might seem pretty far removed from your interests to think about how taxonomy works. Even other scientists are like this, though - what goes on in taxonomic research is often regarded as only concerning taxonomists, and other scientists don't seem to keep up with it. The most they might do is check for accepted changes in nomenclature.

But taxonomy is important. It is the foundation for all organismal biological research. Arguably, it is important to anyone working with or keeping animals (or other organisms, but I'm going to focus back in on the taxa I know). How can you make inferences about an organism if you don't know what it is? How can you be sure that the information you are basing your husbandry on is about the same organism you're keeping if you don't know its name?

Have you ever heard of taxonomic vandalism?

In taxonomy, the most senior name for an organism is the one that must be used. (Provided it is appropriately applied - names can be changed to newer ones if it is found that a species is in synonymy, or placed in the wrong genus, etc.) It doesn't actually matter if the name comes from a legitimate source or not - predatory journals that accept all submissions without review if you pay for them, self published works with no peer review, all of it has an impact on the field.

So we get people playing dress up as scientists, submitting papers with names, and those names become real. They don't go away - even if they're wrong! We would have to conduct a fresh, expensive, time consuming study providing evidence that they're invalid to get them removed. But even then, if a name change needs to happen on those taxa in the future and that name is the most senior, applicable name, it has to be resurrected.

We are also seeing debates in taxonomy on what can be used to describe a species. The entomologists, in particular, are doing some wild things.

One group if researchers "described" over 400 species of wasps on DNA barcodes alone. No physical specimens, no morphological descriptions. But you can't barcode an organism from the field. These names are useless if they can't be put to use. But they exist, so they have an impact. Anyone describing species from these groups in the future will have to identify which barcode matches their specimen. (And note that DNA "barcodes" are not the silver bullet for taxonomy that they're made out to be - its not quite so simple as just matching up a code.)

Another group of researchers has been attempting to describe species from photographs - they saw a specimen in the field once, took a photo, but didn't collect it. This might seem better, but it ignores the importance of museum type specimens. Having a physical specimen to compare to removes uncertainty when trying to determine if a specimen belongs to the same species. Examination of physical specimens is often important when a new, similar species is discovered that may have been considered synonymous with an existing species before. How can you determine which is the new one and which is the old one with only a photograph to go off of? (Morphological taxonomic descriptions should include measurements, fine details, very specific descriptions that you only get by handling a specimen. These precise identifiers are essential in situations like this, where you need to distinguish between two very similar species.)

All of this turmoil in taxonomy takes time and effort away from working on describing new species - an important task as we face our current biodiversity crisis. Taxonomists are working to describe the diversity of life before the ongoing mass extinction event wipes it out. Countless species we've never seen are going extinct without us knowing, representing branches on the tree of life that could help us better understand evolutionary relationships.

[synapsid-taxonomy]

Is Malkani a taxonomic vandal (like the herpetologist Raymond Hoser)?

I would say...no, not quite. He is actually describing new material (something taxonomic vandals rarely ever do), the total number of taxa named is comparatively low, and I get the sense he isn’t naming these taxa for glory or just because he can. He’s not giving a new name to every nondescript chunk he finds (he’ll at least refer multiple nondescript chunks to the same species). This is a step up from Hoser’s deliberate misconduct. A taxonomic vandal is unethical; Malkani is just incompetent.

Unlike Hoser’s self-publication, Malkani actually does try to publish in legitimate journals (and he succeeds, although the editorial standards vary). But this time he went for a predatory one that let this particularly shoddy piece of work get through. Your mileage may vary on whether this crosses the line, but I think it depends on his intent - if he simply fell for a predatory journal, or if he intentionally published there to circumvent proper peer review. I’m inclined towards the former.

As an aside, it turns out several species in the 2019 paper he had named earlier. So why he labels every single one “new genus and species” in the 2019 paper is a mystery. However, at least one of those earlier publications was a conference abstract, and thus not valid at the time.

[galarsteel]

My take on this is that Typing is a descriptive label, and it and Actual Phylogenetics(tm) are essentially untethered.

Describing a pokémon as Electric carries the same taxonomic weight as describing a specimen as a herbivore; its just a loose descriptor that doesn’t necessarily imply any genetic relationships, and if you were going to try and infer a relationship you certainly wouldn’t start on the basis of “something being herbivorous”.

Typing varies dramatically and frequently among individuals of the same species depending on where they live/what rock you rub on them/how happy they are on any given day, so I can’t see pokémon scientists viewing it as some fundamental basis for grouping. Egg-groups, however, are a bit more useful in terms of biologically separating species as to successfully breed its super useful to share at least a reasonable amount of DNA, and they conform more closely with what I’d expect phylogenetic classes to resemble. But then ditto 🤷‍♀️

Also wrt the Evolution thing - pokémon “evolution” is very clearly some kind of energetic reaction where the pokémon emits energy and literally changes biology in an instant which to me reads as an easily demarcated event. Pokémon evolution and biological evolution (change in heritable traits in populations over generations) are two very different phenomenon, with the latter presumably still occurring in the pokémon universe (I think it’s occasionally mentioned) - but it seems to me that the difference in a Cleffa maturing and a Cleffa “evolving” into a Clefairy are two empirically different things.

I may be a little jaded as taxonomy IRL is an overwrought mess rife with weird agendas - I specifically know of a prolific “zoologist” who manufactured new species and subspecies just so he could name them after family members, pet dogs, and friends, and because of international guidelines taxonomic vandalism can actually set precedent and can be very difficult to undo. Not to mention the fact that in general species delimitation can be tricky and imprecise. I hope that the pokémon universe avoids these problems. 😅

Sometimes I like to think biology and taxonomy as a field is, if anything, even more complicated in the pokemon universe than it is in ours? Like it’d be really funny if the seemingly straightforward, reliable, and intuitive systems that are explained to us in the game is just the simple version given to young people who tend to be just starting out in their relationships with pokemon while across the country you have like. Professor Sycamore giving speeches about how much oversight was required to formally accept Fairy as a valid typing and getting derailed by a pundit talking about the Flying type and he’s like “Don’t talk to me about the flying type if you so much as look at the Flying type you’ll get into about eight taxonomical arguments that have been going on longer than you’ve been alive”

next door you have people arguing for the billionth time whether or not Cleffa should be recognized as a True pre-evolution of Clefairy or if the differences in its anatomy aren’t significant enough to classify and there’s at least one school of thought that Evolution doesn’t exist and the only real pokemon are final evolutions, so neither pikachu nor pichu are their own creatures they’re just immature and/or neotenous raichu.

Somewhere else in the world you have a paleontology conference discussing the latest fossils found of the ancient pokemon basculegion and reconstruction implications only for a time traveler to slam the rear doors open like “I SAW GOD, WAS THROWN BACK IN TIME, AND BASCULEGION DID NOT LOOK LIKE THAT,”

[snakemanaustralia]

More taxonomic vandalism - Conrad Hoskin

Oedura picta Hoskin 2019 is an illegally coined junior synonym of Oedura attenboroughi Wells and Wellington, 1985. Oedura elegans Hoskin 2019 is an illegally coined junior synonym of Oedura shireenhoserae Hoser, 2017. Learn more about Wolfgang Wuster and taxonomic vandalism at: http://www.smuggled.com/scientific-fraud-wolfgang-wuster.htm

[snakebusters]

Fake Science, Sunandan Das, Snake Family not discovered by him.

Well, it seems that when you pretend to be a scientist and are unable to actually discover anything, you simply steal an old discovery and fake it as new!

So here we have a serial offender at it again.

Sunandan Das that dodgy Indian scammer - think telemarketing scams.

Currently operating in Finland of all places, has been faking it as a scientist and has claimed to have made an earth shattering discovery of a new FAMILY of snakes!

Not only that, but this is meant to be his second such discovery on the back of another snake family he supposedly discovered last year as well!

So how is it possible that the best scientists in the world never found these families, sitting in plain sight and then some sleaze-bag from Calcutta managed to pull it all off?

Well we have a case of FAKE SCIENCE at its lowest level.

Both the families of snake that Sleazy Sunandan Das has allegedly discovered, were discovered and formally named years back.

So what are these families?

Das has been busy SPAMMING the global media with his alleged discovery of Psammodynastiidae.

Problem is that a genuine scientist in the name of Raymond Hoser discovered and named that one back in 2013.

That is 11 years ago if anyone cares to count.

Last years effort by Sleazy Sunandan Das, the alleged discovery of Micrelapiidae was also actually discovered and named by Hoser in 2013, so he was only 10 years late that time.

(Same names for the families both times, but Sleazy Sunandan Das chopped an "i" out of each to fool the online databases).

Notwithstanding the fake science of Sleazy Sunandan Das, his online marketing and next-level SEO have plastered the internet with his fake discovery as "news" in places like "Newsweek" so he can look forward to scamming yet more hand outs from government grants bodies.

But as for the University of Helsinki in Finland, who supposedly "funded" this absolute non-discovery, well they look like a complete and utter bunch of idiots.

They really have been scammed by Sleazy Sunandan Das.

It will be interesting to find out if Sunandan Das keeps his gig there after the University realize that they have been conned.

And for those who want to see the paper bootlegged by Sleazy Sunandan Das, the paper of Hoser (2013) that actually discovered and named the relevant snake families, well that can be downloaded here:

[rapidsnakeremoval]

Scientific fraud: The widely publicized alleged discovery of a new species of sea snake in Western Australia on April Fools Day 2020 on the internet has been exposed as evil and unlawful Taxonomic Vandalism. The authors simply lifted and stole the findings from another scientists paper published four years earlier! Emydocephalus orarius, Nankivell et al. 2020 had in fact already been named Emydocephalus teesi Hoser, 2016

[snakecatchers]

Wolfgang Wuster with taxonomic vandalism, fraud and other serious crimes.

Wolfgang Wuster, Taxonomic vandalism, fraud, misconduct and illegal activity.

Wolfgang Wuster, serial criminal and a history of lies, frauds and criminal misconduct.

In the period 1998 to 2020, Welsh Pseudo Academic Wolfgang Wuster has engaged in a career defining campaign against the over 200 year old Zoological Code by engaging in repeated acts of fraud, lies, deception, theft, thuggery and extreme taxonomic vandalism. Wuster has taken it upon himself to undo the work of thousands of zoologists over the past two centuries by laying to waste the Zoological Code that governs all zoologists and the naming of all species of animals, ranging from giant Whales to microscopic organisms. The genesis of Wuster's campaign was in 1998 when he decided to defend a friend's fraudulent claims against Zoologist Raymond Hoser, after they were publicly exposed by another Zoologist, Neil Davie. In 1998, Hoser an Australian-based Zoologist formally described a new species of King Brown Snake from north-east Australia, naming it Pailsus pailsei. Notwithstanding the fact that Hoser's description was thorough and there was never any credible doubt that Hoser had defined a previously unnamed species, a Mr David John Williams published three versions of a paper claiming that Hoser's new species was fictitious and merely an underfed Mulga Snake (Pseudechis australis). Williams is a serial wildlife smuggler, with criminal convictions for both wildlife smuggling and aggravated animal cruelty. He was also a close friend of Wuster, who also has a long history of committing unspeakable acts of animal cruelty to reptiles. Williams had been adversely named in two of Hoser's nine books, namely Smuggled:The underground trade in Australia's Wildlife published in 1993, and the sequel, Smuggled-2:Wildlife trafficking, crime and corruption in Australia published in 1996. The Williams claims against the new Hoser species was a clear act of revenge against Hoser for publishing details of his nefarious past in the two books. Wuster took up the challenge on behalf of Williams and extended it to include all scientific papers of Hoser spanning a period of many decades. To this end, Wuster edited numerous online reptile databases to falsely assert that no Hoser-named species were valid. This included cases where other independent herpetologists had confirmed the Hoser species. Furthermore, even when molecular data was produced confirming the Hoser species, Wuster would still publish that the species were "non-taxa" and that they shouldn't be recognized by others. Wusters campaign against Hoser's species became ever more desperate and obsessive as the number of species named by Hoser grew over the decade commencing year 2000, and other scientists validated each and every one of the Hoser-named species and genera, as the years went by. In 2012, Wuster reversed his previous decades denials to claim that Hoser's descriptions were valid and that because Hoser had named "too many' species, that himself and his friends should have the right to dispense with the established Zoological Code, administered by the International Commission For Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) and rename the same species in honour of his own friends and relatives. Wuster and his friends, known as the Wuster gang, extended their hit list of taxa to include hundreds of genera and species as named by authors spanning more than a century, including the late Fitzinger's species named in the 1800's. Against this backdrop of rule breaking, taxonomic vandalism and seeking to turn the nomenclature of reptiles and other animals into chaos, Wuster spent more than a decade stalking the internet peddling lies about Hoser and others who supported him. Wuster often posted under false names and user ID's to masquerade his warped view of the world as being widely accepted, when it wasn't. In one case, Williams and Wuster tried to defraud the Accor Hotels chain of many thousands of dollars through the creation of several thousand fake ID's. Their scam was exposed when the hotel chain found "votes" for an allegedly unsung hero, the wildlife smuggler, David Williams, all coming from the same IP address. In another case, Wuster's close friend, the amateur snake handler, Wulf Schleip decided to invent 3 species of python in a paper he published in a journal in a place in which he was an editor. Bypassing any credible peer review or quality control (as is standard for Wuster and his papers), Schleip committed an act of taxanomic vandalism and scientific fraud by falsely claiming he had DNA evidence in support of his new species, when in fact he did not. His paper was an example of the evidence-free taxonomy that pollutes zoology and potentially endangers species by wasting the time of others who are diverted to clean up the taxonomic and nomenclatural mess he has created. More significantly, after the fraud of Schleip was exposed by the globally recognized herpetologist Raymond Hoser, Wulf Schleip and associates, Wolfgang Wuster and Mark O'Shea embarked on yet another hate campaign against Hoser, falsely accusing him of the very dishonesty, fraud and misconduct and taxonomic vandalism Schleip himself had been engaged in. This included hate articles in so-called journals which they edited or had editorial control, in order to bypass any credible review or quality control, as well as online campaigns on Facebook and internet forums, including the liberal use of bogus accounts and the like. The details of Schleip's original fraud and taxonomic misconduct in terms of the invention of three non-existent species can be found in the paper: Hoser, R. T. 2009. Creationism and contrived science: A review of recent python systematics papers and the resolution of issues of taxonomy and nomenclature. Australasian Journal of Herpetology 2 (2009):1-34. Available online here: http://www.smuggled.com/AJHI2.pdf Wuster himself has also over the decade commencing 2000, repeatedly engaged in the frowned upon act of plagiarisation of other scientists work. Notably Wuster has plagiarised several of Hoser's papers in his own later papers, to masquerade Hoser's work and discoveries as his own. The plagiarisation of Hoser's work on an industrial scale by Wuster has included papers on the following species: Death Adders (Acanthophis), King Brown Snakes (Cannia), Taipans (Oxyuranus), Brown Snakes (Pseudonaja) and others. In 2009, in conjunction with his close friends, Van Wallach and Don Broadley, Wuster committed the reprehensible scientific fraud of renaming a genus of African Cobras previously named by Hoser. Besides engaging in fraud and the morally repugnant act of theft of someone else's intellecxtual property, the three men also put lives at risk by their deliberate creation of nomenclatural and taxonomic confusion in these medically significant snakes. The details of that paper are here: Hoser, R. T. 2012. Exposing a Fraud! Afronaja Wallach, Wuster and Broadley 2009, is a junior synonym of Spracklandus Hoser 2009! Australasian Journal of Herpetology 9:1-64.. Wuster and his good friend, the angry little man, Mark O'Shea were also culpably responsible for the premature death of snake expert Luke Yeomans, the details of which can be found in this paper: Hoser, R. T. 2012. Yeomansus: A New Genus for the Slender Racer (Serpentes:Colubridae). Australasian Journal of Herpetology 14:3-5. A good outline of a failed smear campaign by Wuster can be found in this paper: Hoser, R. T. 2012. Robust taxonomy and nomenclature based on good science escapes harsh fact-based criticism, but remains unable to escape an attack of lies and deception. Australasian Journal of Herpetology 14:37-64. A more complete history of Wuster's career defining acts of fraud and misconduct spanning the 15 years from 1998 to 2013 including numerous acts of taxonomic misconduct can be found in a 2013 paper published in hard copy and later online here: Hoser, R. T. 2013. The science of herpetology is built on evidence, ethics, quality publications and strict compliance with the rules of nomenclature. Australasian Journal of Herpetology 18:2-79. This paper also details acts of fraud, misconduct and repeated criminal activities by other members of the Wuster gang, including Mark O'Shea, Brian Crother, Wulf Schleip, Hinrich Kaiser and David John Williams.

[reptilemanaustralia]

Taxonomic Vandals / Fake Scientists / Scientific Fraud. Including scammers of government grants and hand outs on false pretexts and by fraud. A list of some of the worst offenders here. #taxonomicvandalism #fraud #fakescientists #animalabusers #scientificfraud #governmentgrantscammers Notes: 1/ All the above persons are listed as authors of papers that have engaged in the nefarious practice of taxonomic vandalism.2/ Taxonomic vandalism is the illegal renaming of species, genera or family already named by other scientists and then, knowing these taxa have been properly named prior, promoting the illegal new names instead of the correct older names, along with simultaneously improperly trying to suppress or hide the correct legal names from others.4/ Taxonomic vandalism is in breach of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, highly dishonest and anti-science.5/ These acts of Taxonomic Vandalism have been mainly done at the instigation of serial law-breaker and certified animal abuser, Wolfgang Wüster of Wales. They are typically justified by the fake scientists/name thieves on the basis of a blog document called “Kaiser et al.” in fact written by Wüster himself.6/ Taxonomic vandalism wastes time and money of legitimate scientists who have to fix the mess and deliberate confusion caused by the taxonomic vandals. 7/ Taxonomic vandals use fake online accounts and hijack databases and the like to infect them with their illegal names and to delete the correct scientific names to confuse scientists and the general public. Their actions and the damage they cause can be compared to the effects of a severe Coronavirus pandemic.8/ Taxonomic vandalism is fake science and anti-science. Taxonomic Vandalism can only exist in the complete absence of peer review.9/ Taxonomic vandalism has in the past caused species to be become extinct and is an evil law-breaking practice that needs to be stamped and the perpetrators exposed10/ Many of the taxonomic vandals listed above are ostensibly government-funded scientists and are scamming research grants to conduct original research, when all they are doing is stealing work from other scientists and fraudulently rebadging it as original research.11/ Research grants awarded to these fake scientists are illegally obtained and the fake scientists if caught would be liable to be charged for fraud, theft and potentially jailed.12/ Taxonomic vandals like Wolfgang Wüster typically “author shop”, with the added names being listed on the paper as authors “to add credibility” to the document (Wüster’s exact words).  Not all above listed co-authors would even be aware that their names have been associated with fake science, but in those cases they are reckless in not reading or checking properly the so-called “paper” they have put their name to.