Van Wallach

Van Stanley Bartholomew Wallach (born 1947) is an American herpetologist and an expert on blindsnakes and on the systematics, internal anatomy, and taxonomy of snakes. He has contributed to the descriptions of at least 46 species of snakes[1] and has conducted fieldwork on tropical snakes in the Philippines, Nicaragua, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

For many years Wallach worked as a Curatorial Assistant at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He retired from the museum in 2012, but he continues to work on snake taxonomy.[2] Wallach was the lead editor of the 1,227 page authoritative reference book Snakes of the World.[3]

In the 2000s Wallach was one of several herpetologists who became embroiled in a dispute with Raymond Hoser, an Australian herpetologist, over proper nomenclatural acts. Hoser charged Wallach with creating a destabilising dual nomenclature by attempting to rename species that Hoser had already described in his journal. Wallach's coauthors suggested incorrectly that Hoser had not complied with the provisions of the ICZN Code. The debate became quite heated, with Hoser charging Wallach with "scientific fraud",[4] whereas nine prominent biologists published a paper in which they, not so indirectly, called Hoser a "taxonomic vandal".[5] These biologists suggested that the herpetofaunal taxa published on or after 1 January 2000 that can be objectively classed as unscientific, non-peer reviewed, misguided in intent or presentation, fraudulent, or lacking evidence should not be used and offered a list of recommended substitutions, as a temporary stop-gap until the ICZN has developed a suitable response to actions of taxonomic vandals. They went on to list over 200 purportedly invalid taxonomic names that had been offered by Hoser.[5] Since then the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) ruled that it was self evident that Hoser's work was Code compliant and validly published under the ICZN Code. Whilst Hoser has been heavily condemned for prolific naming of new species, and been called a vandal for doing so, by contrast to many of his critics, he has never knowingly created a de-stabilizing dual nomenclature, nor ignored the ICZN Code rules particularly the rule of priority! Since then his critics have embarked on a systematic re-description of all of Hoser's valid names with priority.

  1. ^ "The Reptile Database". The Reptile Database. Retrieved 23 August 2017.
  2. ^ Staff (5 October 2012). "Staff and student news". Collections and Research News. Field Museum. Archived from the original on 22 December 2013.
  3. ^ Wallach, VW; Williams, KJ; Boundy, J (2014). Snakes of the World: A Catalogue of Living and Extinct Species. Boca Raton, Florida, USA: CRC Press.
  4. ^ Anonymous (12 May 2012). "Harvard Academic guilty of scientific fraud". Independent Media Centre Australia. Archived from the original on 22 December 2013.
  5. ^ a b Kaiser, Hinrich; et al. (2013). "Best Practices: In the 21st Century, Taxonomic Decisions in Herpetology are Acceptable Only When Supported by a Body of Evidence and Published via Peer-Review" (PDF). Herpetological Review. 44 (1): 8–23.