Eggspots Elsewhere - Welt der Fische / World of Fishes

means “define”, a specialised usage, and is not the same as “differentiate from”
– the commonplace, everyday usage which “Maylandia-ites” cite so regularly with
regard to MEYER & FOERSTER’s alleged (see below) differentiation of Maylandia
from Pseudotropheus williamsi. Differentiating taxon X from taxon Y tells us
only how to tell that X is not Y; it does not tell us how to distinguish X from
anything else (in this case other closely-related (ie mbuna) genera and
subgenera), or how to determine whether any particular animal belongs to taxon
X, which is what Article 13 and “differentiate” require.
A tacit cry for help? Maylandia or Metriaclima – after so many years a conclusive decision would seem called for.
To give a trivial example. You could differentiate me from the editor of eggspots
quite easily as I am a lot smaller and don’t have a beard, but that probably
applies to most of the women and a lot of the men on this planet, and it does not
tell you a thing about who I am, what makes me MB rather than any other woman
you might come across. But “female English writer on cichlids” would enable a
lot of fishkeepers to make a fair stab at who you were talking about.
With me so far?
Unfortunately very few of the people who support Maylandia, even those whose
mother tongue is English, seem to appreciate this semantic nicety, but I am in no
doubt whatsoever that the authors of the Code DID, and that they intended
“differentiate” to mean “define”, ie differentiate from ALL other similar taxa, not
just one. The introduction to the Code is quite specific about its use of precise,
unambiguous language to convey specific meanings. Moreover any other sense
40
Help!
Maylandia or Metriaclima
– you decide.
BAILEY: the case for Metriaclima