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Illicit centipede raises thorny question: Should journals have refused to publish a paper about it?


In 2018, a new species of centipede graced the pages of the prominent taxonomy journal
Zootaxa. More than 14 centimeters long, with striking teal-colored legs, it lives in the montane and mossy forests of the Philippines. Now, however, the centipede is in a harsh spotlight. The Philippine government says the Spanish neurologist and amateur biologist who described the species acquired his specimens illegally.
Neither the journal’s editors nor its peer reviewers caught the lapse and the journal has no policy requiring documentation that specimens have been collected with proper permits. Some editors tell 
Science that should change. Others worry about hampering research when undescribed species are vanishing fast. And all agree that journals would struggle to enforce any such rules, given the wide variation in countries’ legal requirements. “There is simply no way for a journal to police this,” says Maarten Christenhusz, an independent botanist and editor-in-ch ....

New Zealand , France General , United States , Louis Deharveng , Shaun Winterton , Carles Dom , Michael Andrew Cipat , Caroline Fukushima , Carlos Mart , Maarten Christenhusz , Zhi Qiang Zhang , Gonzalo Giribet , Landcare Research , Finnish Museum Of Natural History , California Department Of Food , University Of Turku Zoological Museum , Philippine Department Of Environment , National Museum Of Natural History , Zoological Journal Of The Linnean Society , Harvard University , University Of Alicante , Zoological Journal , Linnean Society , Philippine Department , Natural Resources , Qiang Zhang ,