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, a self-published Australian herpetologist, over proper nomenclatorial acts. Hoser charged Wallach with attempting to name species that Hoser had already described in his self-published journal. Wallach's coauthors pointed out 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] The 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 invalid taxonomic names that had been offered by Hoser.[5]

Taxon named in his honor

Taxa credited
  • Acutotyphlops banaorum Wallach, Brown, Diesmos & Gee, 2007
  • Acutotyphlops kunuaensis Wallach, 1995
  • Afrotyphlops nanus Broadley & Wallach, 2009
  • Afrotyphlops nigrocandidus Broadley & Wallach, 2000
  • Epacrophis drewesi Wallach, 1996
  • Epictia alfredschmidti Lehr, Wallach, Köhler & Aguilar, 2002
  • Guinea broadleyi Wallach & Hahn, 1997
  • Guinea greenwelli Wallach & Boundy, 2005
  • Leptotyphlops aethiopicus Broadley & Wallach, 2007
  • Leptotyphlops howelli Broadley & Wallach, 2007
  • Leptotyphlops keniensis Broadley & Wallach, 2007
  • Leptotyphlops macrops Broadley & Wallach, 1996
  • Leptotyphlops mbanjensis Broadley & Wallach, 2007
  • Leptotyphlops nigroterminus Broadley & Wallach, 2007
  • Leptotyphlops pungwensis Broadley & Wallach, 1997
  • Leptotyphlops sylvicolus Broadley & Wallach, 1997
  • Letheobia jubana Broadley & Wallach, 2007
  • Letheobia largeni Broadley & Wallach, 2007
  • Letheobia pauwelsi Wallach, 2005
  • Letheobia pembana Broadley & Wallach, 2007
  • Letheobia swahilica Broadley & Wallach, 2007
  • Letheobia toritensis Broadley & Wallach, 2007
  • Myriopholis adleri Hahn & Wallach, 1998
  • Myriopholis ionidesi Broadley & Wallach, 2007
  • Myriopholis tanae Broadley & Wallach, 2007
  • Oligodon jintakunei Pauwels, Wallach, David, Chanhome, 2002
  • Ramphotyphlops marxi Wallach, 1993
  • Rhinotyphlops episcopus Franzen & Wallach, 2002
  • Typhlops andasibensis Wallach & Glaw, 2009
  • Typhlops etheridgei Wallach, 2002
  • Typhlops fredparkeri Wallach, 1996
  • Typhlops lazelli Wallach & Pauwels, 2004
  • Typhlops mcdowelli Wallach, 1996
  • Typhlops meszoelyi Wallach, 1999
  • Typhlops roxaneae Wallach, 2001
  • Xenotyphlops mocquardi Wallach, Mercurio & Andreone, 2007
  • Xyelodontophis uluguruensis Broadley & Wallach, 2002

Notes
  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. 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.
  6. Das, I. (1998). "A new species of Boiga (Serpentes: Colubridae) from the Nicobar Archipelago" (PDF). Journal of South Asian Natural History. 3 (1): 59–67.
  7. Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. ISBN 978-1-4214-0135-5. ("Wallach", p. 279).
  8. "The Code Online". International Commission of Zoological Nomenclature.
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