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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rasmus Boegh" data-source="post: 893006" data-attributes="member: 1146">Unfortunately, there have been a few cases, e.g. the wild splitting some have presented for the monkeys of the genus Callicebus (previously, three species were listed, and while that almost certainly is too few, some have now suggested that as many as 29 species, all monotypic, should be recognized!). Anybody think GoldenPalace.com would have paid US$ 650.000 to name a monkey if they had been told it "only" was a subspecies? An example where a split also appeared, at least in part, to be fuelled by a wish for a good conservation species at a specific locality, is the relatively recent split of Pyrrhura griseipectus from P. leucotis (the case for P. pfrimeri versus P. leucotis is much stronger). Many might not see this as important, but the fact is that conservation is completely reliant upon economics. Sure, we could wish it was different as indicated by the comments in earlier posts, e.g. that "People who talk about nature in economic terms simply have no soul", but that still doesn't change the realities that conservation in todays world is completely reliant on economics. Another fact is that there, at this point at least, quite simply isn't enough money available to conserve every single important site. If anyone doubt this, try visiting the southern border-regions of the Amazon, lowland Atlantic forest in Brazil, the inter-Andean valleys in Colombia or the lowland rainforest in south-east Asia (e.g. the Philippines). So, often politicians or organisations stand in the dilemma of having to chose one of two projects, knowing perfectly well that the loosing site is likely to disappear. Now, what project are they going to chose? The one where it is claimed that they have 5 endangered, "interesting" species (parrots, eagles, and other things that are easy to "sell" to the general public), or the site that has 3 endangered, "ordinary" species (e.g. many Furnariids, which generally are small brown birds that non-birders have little interest in). Clearly, virtually any politician or organisation is going to forward the money to the first project. This could be the best choice, but the problem is that the average politician has little basis for judging if the species presented in the two cases really deserve species status. It could be that the first site really "only" is the home of five taxa that deserve subspecies status, while the second really, as presented, is the home to 3 endangered species (i.e. it would become 5 subspecies versus 3 species). This would likely change the case, meaining that the second site got the money instead. So, this is why it is so important that people working in taxonomics are careful and split the things that should be split, but equally careful not to split things where the basis for doing so is questionable. One day, when there are enough money available for conservation to save every single species AND subspecies, this would change, but as things look right now where we barely manage to save the species, we're decades if not centuries from that situation.</blockquote>

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