Types in modern taxonomy

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Abstract
Individuals called "types" have been used in taxonomy in 3 ways: as bases for definitions, as standards of comparison, and aa fixed points to which names are attached. The modern conception of taxonomy as involving the inference of population characters from samples makes it impossible for the same items properly to serve all 3 of these purposes. Inferences as to populations, involved in definition and in comparison, should be based equally on all available items believed by the given author to belong to the population in question. No items should be singled out as "primary" or "secondary," or emphasized as "types" of any sort. For this whole group of items, the sample properly constituted, the name "hypodigm" is proposed. The only purpose that "types" in the classic sense can serve is that of name-bearers, and it is proposed to confine them explicitly to this function. Most of the dozens of terms proposed for various sorts of types should be discarded. In new work the one term "type" is all that is needed. In revision, "syntype," "lectptype," and "neotype," at most, may also be useful. The hypodigms of supferfipecific units are also groups of concrete specimens although their types are abstractions. A recent paper by Dennler recognizes, in part, the difficulty of basing taxonomic concepts on "types" in the old sense, but the proposals made in that paper are deemed inadequate and impractical.

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