Talk:Type (biology)

A note
This does not look right to me. Why go into so much detail, without trying to get it right? The present page definitely is inaccurate where plants is concerned. The way types are handled in the ICBN is quite complex.

Probably the requirements for animals are quite different from those for plants and probably those for Bacteria are too. Looks like this page will have to be split two or more ways before it can even begin to be corrected. PvR Sep 2005

Is it really accurate to state that a type binds a name to a taxon? Would it be better to say that a type is a representative example that helps anchor or centralize the defining features for a taxon? Myron 20:03, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
 * I liked your sentence and have included it (slightly modified) in the introduction. Invertzoo (talk) 00:23, 23 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Obviously, the problem is that if a statement is to be true for the ICBN, ICZN and ICNB it has to be checked against all three. Rules on types are very complicated and it is hard enough to phrase it so it is true for one Code, let alone all three. Splitting this looks more appealing all the time. Brya 18:54, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

I tried and removed everything that purported to refer to botany. However, I am not at all confident that what remains is true, even for zoology only. Maybe it was accurate for an earlier edition of the ICZN, but not for this one ? Brya 19:30, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Merge
This should not be a disambiguation page. There is no reason to have seperate type articles for botany and zoology. This will also fix all of the "biological type" links that point here. --Selket Talk 05:44, 6 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Support. Certainly this is almost useless as a disambiguation page.  A non-specialist would have great difficulty using this page to locate the correct article to find more information about a particular biological type classification, because this page relies on acronyms and terminology that themselves require explanation.  --Russ (talk) 11:49, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Support. Hundreds of links here? Let's fix the problem the easiest way. — Pious7Talk Contribs 16:51, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Isotype?
Of the various 'types' mentioned here, there is no mention of what an "isotype" is, except, perhaps, the "isoneotype" that is mentioned as an unregulated and unofficial permutation. There is a disambiguation page for various uses of the word "isotype", and it states that "In biology, per the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature, the "Isotype" is a duplicate of the holotype." But, neither the ICBN page linked to nor the holotype page link to have any mention of "isotype", as near as I can tell.

The rules for many different "types" are give in the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (VIENNA CODE)(2006), particularly Article 9 ( online at http://ibot.sav.sk/icbn/frameset/0013Ch2Sec2a009.htm ), but it is a little beyond my time and abilities to try to sort it all out, currently.

An example of an isotype usage I am dealing with is a collection at the Nationaal Herbarium Nederland (National Herbarium of the Netherlands, NHN) for Tetractomia majus ( http://145.18.162.53:81/c8?ent=300017&rec=16133&sct=1 ). I was a looking at "Random pages" and seeing if I could expand a article or add a link.

--MatthewBChambers 23:09, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

bacteria and fungi
I know they are different, but somene might wonder why they are not included - the reason should be given. At least, there shold be a reference or statement about types in these other organisms (including virus, phage, archeobacter, etc)Cinnamon colbert (talk) 16:18, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * A look at the page history shows that this page did not come about by an intent to inform the reader about the topic "Biological type", which would be well worth a page of its own, but to get the pages type (botany) and type (zoology) out of the way. - Dendrid (talk) 05:30, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Homo sapiens
Is any known type specimen or type series ? Also for H. s. s ?76.16.176.166 (talk) 00:39, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

There definitely is a type for Homo sapiens, it is Carl Linnaeus, he was designated as the lectotype in 1959 by Professor William Stearn. There is an excellent paper by Spamer (1999) which explains the whole situation. See http://www.jstor.org/stable/4065043. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 157.140.1.72 (talk) 17:27, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I actually had to check the month of publication ! Thanks ! Shyamal (talk) 01:47, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Operational taxonomic unit
Operational taxonomic unit redirects to this page, yet there is no definition or explanation of what an OTU is in this article. I would argue that perhaps OTU should have its own article, but at the very least it should be defined in this article since it redirects here. 67.164.175.18 (talk) 04:30, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Introductory text
I added some words to the introduction to more colloqually explain types and in particular their importance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.193.179.135 (talk) 05:44, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Hard to understand
The following section is extremely hard to understand and is written in a confusing way. I am currently trying to rewrite it to make it clearer.

"Types fix names to taxa by the following rule: you name your taxon according to the oldest name of the type specimens that it includes. If your taxon circumscription includes a type specimen, then the name on that type specimen becomes the name of your taxon. If more than one, then the oldest name takes precedence and becomes the name of your taxon. If your taxon does not include any type specimen, then you must pick a type specimen, dub it with a new name."

Invertzoo (talk) 23:57, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

I had a go at completely rewriting this. I believe I have improved it, but I am more than willing to have others improve it further. Invertzoo (talk) 00:27, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

terra typica restricta
The above term is often seen, while its meaning may not be clear to all. A clarification of a restricted type locality may be useful in this article. JMK (talk) 10:16, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree, especially because the term "type locality" crossreferences to this WP article.98.111.224.50 (talk) 10:59, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

First use
Types are demanded since 1961. When were types used firstly? Are they used since the start of modern taxonomy in 1758 or sometimes since 19 century? When was the first usage of this word (or "concept" if used in another language) and who was the first? --Snek01 (talk) 21:47, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not quite sure, but I think the concept of a "type" derives ultimately from the creationist concept of "created kinds": there would be a typical form of each "kind", and "degenerated" forms. Of course, we no longer believe that, but it remains useful to anchor a taxon on one child taxon. Judging from Google Books snippets, Mayr (1953) probably has some discussion of this matter. Ucucha 22:09, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * According to George Gaylord Simpson (1961, Principles of Animal Taxonomy, pp. 47–50), the concept of a "type" goes back even further, to Platonic philosophy. According to this philosophy, every taxon has an underlying pattern, the type (i.e., the Platonic "idea"). For early biologists who adhered to this school of thought, the type of a taxon could be represented by a subtaxon or specimen that embodied the characters of that taxon, the root of the current, nomenclatural type. Later, the two became disentangled, and now "type" only has the nomenclatural meaning. Simpson is not precise about the chronology of all this. Ucucha 22:18, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * OK, when was it firstly used in nomenclatural meaning? --Snek01 (talk) 22:41, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

The lead paragraph
The lead paragraph doesn't fit the name of the page, it deals only with type specimens. The type species of a genus, for example is not covered. In botany at least, we have situations where the type species of a genus has been established, but the type specimen for that type species still needs work (lectotypification, for example). Nadiatalent (talk) 12:29, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Lectotype & Syntype merger
I propose that the articles at Lectotype and Syntype be merged into this one. "Lectotype" seems to be a synonym for "type specimen". The Lectotype article started off in 2005 as a redirect to Biological type, as was Syntype. Then when Syntype was split off from Biological type, Lectotype redirected to Syntype. Then in February 2010 Lectotype was split from Syntype. This all seems like a classic example of over-enthusiastic content forking. Right now, the existing discussion in this article of letcotype and syntype under "Use of types" would seem to be adequate coverage of the subject and those two should go back to being redirects. --Bejnar (talk) 23:05, 12 March 2012 (UTC)


 * "Lectotype" is not really a synonym of "type specimen", since it is only one kind of type specimen, but you may be right that it could be happily merged into this article. --Stemonitis (talk) 18:54, 12 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Agree with merging. Those stubs are not independently useful - to understand their topics it is necessary to see their relationship to one another. Separate stubs makes this very difficult when someone first encounters one, because one won't yet know the names of those other topics to distinguish it with. Cesiumfrog (talk) 00:02, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Agree. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 17:38, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Now, currently the list of types is described in the section on zoology. However, most of these terms also apply in botany, so to avoid POV forking the section, should probably make it stand-alone from zoology. Cesiumfrog (talk) 00:58, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
 * So is what you are proposing to take these out to their own section and mark each one with which codes it applies to? Sounds good to me. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 13:14, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately, this merger has contributed to a subsequent mess here, so I've boldly re-established the Syntype page, and will work on untangling botany from zoology here. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 21:18, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Illustrations, etc.
I'd like to mention in the lede that a type can be an illustration, if others approve. Also, further down it is stated that the type can be a taxon. That was once the case in the code of botanical nomenclature, when the type of a genus was a species, but it has changed so that now the type of a genus (or family) is the type of the species. Does anyone know of other cases, can this now be removed? Sminthopsis84 (talk) 13:02, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Oops, found part of the answer myself, the bacteriological code (1990, the most recent, I think) says that the type of a genus is a species, etc. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 13:15, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Type of Homo sapiens
I removed the section that said that Homo sapiens has no type, and does not need one. This ICZN link makes it quite clear that Carl Linnaeus is the lectotype for Homo sapiens and was designated such in 1959. Invertzoo (talk) 13:28, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

What is a "cotype"?
Mentioned in article but not defined. 86.159.197.174 (talk) 05:17, 22 August 2014 (UTC)
 * It's an obsolete term, still listed in the glossary of the zoological code of nomenclature here. Topotype is another term that should be mentioned here and is defined in the same place. I don't know where this material should be inserted, but I think it would be helpful to have it here with redirects to it. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 22:14, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Linnaeus as type specimen for H. sapiens
Page watchers are invited to weigh in at the discussion at Talk:Carl Linnaeus regarding the type specimen of H. sapiens. Umimmak (talk) 09:09, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

Plastotype
Shouldn't there also be a plastotype section to where the use of type specimens is? Rugoconites Tenuirugosus (talk) 13:25, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

Type specimen and holotype
I don't understand what's the difference between these terms? Aren't they synonymous? Xiphactinus88 (talk) 13:14, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I would say that the phrase " the type specimen" (of a species, say) generally has the same meaning as "the holotype", but a type specimen could also be a paratype, lectotype, syntype, etc. So, no, they are not synonyms. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:47, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

"Neohapantotype" listed at Redirects for discussion
The redirect [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Neohapantotype&redirect=no Neohapantotype] has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at  until a consensus is reached. Utopes (talk / cont) 00:44, 19 April 2024 (UTC)