> Since Peter has been over in the States for the last few years maybe
he has met
> with someone that he can recommend that could possibly describe these
fish for
Most people already have far too much to do than to pick up a whole
other taxa to work on.
> By any chance Bruce was it merely an amateur that collected the fish?
These particular fish were "formally" recognised as undescribed in 1981
in Freshwater Fishes of Southeastern Australia. I think that they had
long been known to be differences among them long before that. We are
also not talking about fishes with restricted ranges. All three
undescribed Hypseleotris and the dwarf Philypnodon occur across four
states and multiple drainages. The same situation exists with the eeltailed
catfish. Norma Feinberg (American Mus. Nat. Hist.) has been revising the
group for over 20 years but nothing has yet come out. I think Gerry got
on her case and offered to help out but there is not a lot he can do
without action from her. Also, in more recent times several fish have
been split up by gell jockies doing electrophoresis (golden perch,
Macquarie perch, Tandanus catfish), all major angling species but they
will only do the proteins and not take it any further. While this is
better than nothing at all it is also a little frustrating too. There is
also one or two undescribed rainbows (most likely) in Western Qld in the
Warrego and Paroo Rivers that likely won't be described for a long time
either. There is a world wide shortage of taxonomists and it's only
going to get worse because none of the younger folk coming into biology
are interested in doing taxonomy. Part of this too is because there is
no jobs in the field. Taxonomy just doesn't get much funding today.
Tootles
Peter