Recently, Meierotto et al. (2019) proposed a ‘revolutionary’ protocol for the description of understudied hyperdiverse taxa. The premise of their study was to champion exclusively DNA-barcode-based species descriptions (=diagnoses), which would dramatically increase the rate of description and provide a ‘human-readable record in the literature’ (unlike a Barcode Index Number, BIN; Ratnasingham & Hebert, 2013) that can later be supplemented with additional information. Species are always delimited against already known species (Linnaeus, 1753, 1758; Mayr, 1992; ICZN, 1999; Naciri & Linder, 2015; Renner, 2016). This was also recognized by Meierotto et al. (2019, p. 120): ‘Requirements for the publication of new species include (... ) that they be accompanied by either a description or diagnosis which can separate them from any known species with which they are likely to be confused’. However, the latter authors failed to diagnose their 15 new Zelomorpha Ashmead, 1900 species from 51 out of 52 previously known species (only the type species was used in the analysis) and their three new Hemichoma Enderlein, 1920 species from any of the five previously known species. This is not the first case of its kind in zoology; Hebert et al. (2004) proposed to recognize ten species of skipper butterflies (genus Astraptes) based on DNA characters and ecology and some morphological characters, but the species were not formally named until Brower (2010) described them based exclusively on unique mutations in the DNA barcode region. Brower (2010) hailed this method as a flagship example of DNA barcoding’s success in overcoming the ‘taxonomic impediment’ (Brower, 2010). However, it has received extensive criticism (DeSalle et al., 2005; Pons et al., 2006; Rubinoff

中文翻译：

---

在追求加速物种描述的“革命性”方法中遗漏了关键数据

最近，Meierotto 等人。(2019) 提出了一个“革命性”的协议来描述未被充分研究的超多样性分类群。他们研究的前提是完全支持基于 DNA 条码的物种描述（=诊断），这将显着提高描述率并提供“人类可读的文献记录”（与条码索引号、BIN 不同； Ratnasingham 和 Hebert，2013 年），稍后可以补充其他信息。物种总是以已知物种为界（Linnaeus, 1753, 1758; Mayr, 1992; ICZN, 1999; Naciri & Linder, 2015; Renner, 2016）。这也得到了 Meierotto 等人的认可。（2019 年，第 120 页）：“出版新物种的要求包括（... ) 它们附有描述或诊断，可以将它们与任何可能与它们混淆的已知物种区分开来”。然而，后者的作者未能诊断出他们的 15 个新的 Zelomorpha Ashmead，即 52 个先前已知物种中的 51 个中的 1900 个物种（仅在分析中使用了模式物种）和他们的三个新 Hemichoma Enderlein，1920 个物种来自先前五个中的任何一个已知物种。这在动物学中并非首例。赫伯特等人。(2004) 提出根据 DNA 特征和生态学以及一些形态特征识别十种船长蝴蝶（Astraptes 属），但直到 Brower (2010) 完全根据 DNA 条形码区域的独特突变描述它们后，才正式命名该物种. Brower (2010) 称赞这种方法是 DNA 条形码成功克服“分类障碍”的标志性例子 (Brower, 2010)。然而，它受到了广泛的批评（DeSalle et al., 2005; Pons et al., 2006; Rubinoff