Bogan paper addresses the pros and cons of amateur malacologists
For immediate release ‐ May 20, 2021
Contact: Micah Beasley, 919.707.9970. Images available upon request
“Many amateurs in malacology are doing a good job and working with professionals in museums or universities,” says Art Bogan, the Museum’s Research Curator of Mollusks. “However, there is a problem in systematics with amateurs describing a large number of new species that are in fact not new.”
In a paper published April 26, Bogan and colleagues reviewed the work of N.N. Thach, an amateur or avocational malacologist writing articles and books on the mollusks of Vietnam. Although Thach is “very enthusiastic and productive,” Bogan notes, he has recently described what he feels are one new genus and 12 new nominal species of freshwater mollusks from Southeast Asia. But as pointed out in the new paper, Thach overlooked several historical works on the target taxa.
“Some of his species may withstand the test of time, but many are descriptions of minor variations in a species,” the paper explains. “Although a complete reappraisal of N.N. Thach’s freshwater Mollusca will be published elsewhere, here we discuss and revise a few remarkable nomenclatural cases which appeared in this work.”
The paper adds that regardless of his errors, “N.N. Thach has made an interesting contribution to the knowledge of freshwater Mollusca in Southeast Asia. The fully illustrated faunal books published by this scholar are of use to tropical zoologists and malacologists and have found a place on the shelves of malacological libraries worldwide.”