Category talk:Species by year of formal description

This category is within the scope of WikiProject Years, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Years on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.YearsWikipedia:WikiProject YearsTemplate:WikiProject YearsYears articles

History of Science

This category is part of the History of Science WikiProject, an attempt to improve and organize the history of science content on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the category attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion. You can also help with the History of Science Collaboration of the Month.History of ScienceWikipedia:WikiProject History of ScienceTemplate:WikiProject History of Sciencehistory of science articles

Tree of Life

This category is within the scope of WikiProject Tree of Life, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of taxonomy and the phylogenetic tree of life on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Tree of LifeWikipedia:WikiProject Tree of LifeTemplate:WikiProject Tree of Lifetaxonomic articles

what's the point

Other than in the pursuit of trivial interest, does listing diverse taxa simply by when they were described serve any real intellectual purpose? J.H.McDonnell (talk) 23:52, 18 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

naming of category tree

Assuming this tree does have importance beyond trivia, shouldn't it be 'Species by year of first formal description'? Mayumashu (talk) 03:22, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The year of description is important for the principle of priority; if a taxonomist decided two species would be better treated as one, the name of the early described species is retained. The year of description is a fundamental piece of taxonomic data. The rules of priority work a little different for plants and animals; the date the species name was published determines priority for animals, while the date of the publication of a combination of genus+species determines the priority date for plants (i.e., a plant described by Linnaeus in 1753, but moved to a different genus in 1950, has a priority date of 1950). The current title of the category covers both plants and animals better than "first formal description" would. Plantdrew (talk) 20:46, 23 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]