===================== Begin forwarded message ==========================
Date: Mon, 04 Dec 1995 12:43:22 -0500
From: Kristian Fauchald <mnh.fauchald at ic.si.edu>
To: gread at actrix.gen.nz
Subject: Re: Sabella spallanzanii from Java? -Reply
Several hundred years had passed between the "discoveries" of the
various non-European countries and the time we started to become
aware of the potential for transportation on ship-bottoms and so forth.
There is something a bit peculiar about the whole debate about
transportation: 1. Rafting on pieces of wood or on ship-bottoms is
different in kind apparently from the rafting on pieces of continent. Time
scale is different, but in principle rafting is rafting whether it is slow or
fast. 2. The fact that the earliest description might be from Europe or
North America does not guarantee that this is the "origin" of the taxon:
All it says is that the taxon was first noticed where the density of
taxonomists where the highest.
Kristian Fauchald
NHB MRC 163
Smithsonian Institution
Washington, DC 20560 USA
Tel. (202)357-4757; FAX (202)357-3043
e-mail MNH.FAUCHALD at IC.SI.EDU
