Thanks, Art, but I will claim that degree of "expertmanship" only for invertebrate trace fossils and Upper Cretaceous bivalves from the U.S. Gulf and Atlantic Coasts. And remember, never send specimens to an expert without asking if it's all right first. He may be too busy, or at death's door, and in both of these cases your specimens may be neither studied nor returned. Mistakes? Experts never make mistakes, do they? Here are some examples: The author overlooks the latest edition of the ICZN and then has to publish a correction of all of his new names because the rules have changed. In the 1930's, for instance, the rules were changed to require that new species actually be described, not just figured. That caught an eminent Smithsonian paleontologist, Ray Bassler, in mid-act. The author has only fragments of shells, and publishes a drawing of the new species based on pieces from different individuals. That not only makes for a difficult choice of type specimens, but can lead to the creation of species that never existed. Conrad used to do this. It used to be very common in vertebrate paleontology, and has led to some rather spectacular errors, as when the American Museum of Natural History's specimen of Brontosaurus had to be given a new, correct head not long ago. Nowadays, the author is careful to assign holotype status to only one fragment. The author names a species early in his career, then forgets and uses the same name for another new species later on. Timothy Abbott Conrad's biographer claims that he did this too, but I don't have any specific cases. (Yes, this is the same Abbott family as in "R. Tucker Abbott".) The author has a poor library but lives in a remote region and simply assumes that everything he sees is new, and publishes them all in a local journal without review from outside the country. This guy is really dangerous. I forget the name, but there was an Argentine paleontologist in the early 20th century who did this, and he was hardly the only one. The author names as much as he can, as fast as he can, with only brief, inadequate descriptions, and without illustrations. In some cases, without specimens. Can anyone say "Rafinesque"? The author retains all the type specimens for his own collection, informs his family that his collection is very valuable, and then dies. The family tries unsuccessfully to convert the collection to cash and discards anything that is unsold. What happens to the type specimens, which may not even be labeled as such? Who knows? That's why a thoughtful editor will reject a paper naming a new species whose type specimens are not given a catalog number in a museum collection. The author ambitiously revises all the members of a large group of organisms, but his ideas are very individual and very wrong, and he publishes it himself without review of any kind. This is unusual, but the Australian herpetologists had this sort of crime perpetrated on them a few years ago. They have the unpleasant choice of (a) ignoring the book (not allowed by the ICZN), (b) correcting it (which would take the rest of their lifetimes and achieve no useful work), or (c) having the book placed on the list of books that are officially ignored by the ICZN (the zoological equivalent of excommunication, and so far as I know never applied to a living author). Wasn't Roding's catalog almost placed on this list? Does anyone have the full story? Andrew K. Rindsberg Geological Survey of Alabama P.S. Sorry, Ross and RoseSea, I got you switched in my last message. No offense taken, I hope.