I'm sorry for the delay. > Can you elaborate, perhaps with an example, how the use of different > species criteria by different biologists would cause problems in the > context of this rule? The objective of the rule is to prohibit the use > of non-type specimens as specifiers when a type could be used instead. > Differences in species criteria may certainly result in a particular > specimen being referred to different species by different people, but can > it result in a biologist concluding that the specimen can't be assigned > to any named species? Of course -- when the question is whether the specimen is similar enough to be assigned to a named species, particularly in contexts (paleontology in other words) where species tend to be morphospecies of some kind. The question "should I refer this new specimen to the species it's most similar to, or should I name a new species for it?" has posed itself to thousands of people countless times. I'll likely have my first encounter with it over the next few weeks.
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