Van Wallach

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Van Stanley Bartholomew Wallach
Born1947 (age 78–79)
Known for
  • Taxonomy of Scolecophidia (Blindsnakes)
  • Lead editor of Snakes of the World (2014)
  • Snake internal anatomy and systematics
Scientific career
FieldsHerpetology, Taxonomy, Internal anatomy
InstitutionsMuseum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University
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]

Wallach-Hoser dispute about taxonomic vandalism

In the 2000s Wallach was one of several herpetologists who became embroiled in a dispute with Raymond Hoser, an Australian herpetologist, over proper nomenclatural acts. Hoser charged Wallach with creating a destabilising dual nomenclature by attempting to rename species that Hoser had already described in his journal. Wallach's coauthors suggested incorrectly 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]

Taxon named in his honor

Taxa credited

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. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2013-12-22.
  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).