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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jurek" data-source="post: 1581787" data-attributes="member: 3357">Tens of taxonomy papers on birds and mammals came out in recent years and all but a few used museum specimens. I, in fact, remember only two papers which really used photos - kipunji monkey and splitiing of clouded leopards.In practice, photos, film and DNA are of limited quality (a photo of animal depends from lighting and quality of the film, DNA sample usualy has only mtDNA), are not stored in any truly accessible databases and cannot be produced on demand. So, this is more a theoretical possibility.ICZN rules prefer a specimen, but it is possible to name a species without it. Some years ago I felt also very much against collecting specimens, but changed my mind. Simply, the number of animals dying naturally and hunted by people is so great that collecting specimens changes nothing. Definitely, gone are days when Victorian collectors thought nothing about shooting out a colony of rare birds for specimens. I would say that the system of getting permissions for specimens got so complicated that it hampers science (and is also hypocritical, because getting a permission to collect tropical animal can be difficult even if the same animal is commonly hunted or poached locally). I remember a number of recent discoveries, where animals were seen alive, but specimens were bought on a local food market: Talaud bush-hen, Laotian rock rat, kipunji monkey...</blockquote>