International Palaeoentomological Society Statement on unethical practices in describing new taxa

Abstract

Taxonomy or biological systematics is the basic scientific discipline of biology, postulating hypotheses of identity and relationships, on which all other natural sciences dealing with organisms relies. Taxonomy as the scientific discipline that explores, discovers, interprets, represents, names, and organizes organic beings (Ebach et al., 2011), is one of the oldest biological disciplines. Taxonomy is a scientific discipline that has provided the universal naming and classification system of biodiversity for centuries and continues effectively to accommodate new knowledge (Thomson et al., 2018). However, taxonomic impediment, decrease in the number of taxonomists, lack of appreciation for this area of research is not only the problem for studies on Recent organisms and their diversity (Wägele et al., 2011; Britz et al., 2020; Vinarski, 2020; Raposo et al., 2021), but it is affecting seriously also research and studies on fossils, their taxonomy and their palaeodiversity.