Abstract
We analyze the relationship between evolutionary theory and classification of higher taxa in the work of three ichthyologists: Albert C.L.G. Günther (1830–1914), Edward Drinker Cope (1840–1897), and Theodore Gill (1837–1914). The progress of ichthyology in the early years following the Origin has received little attention from historians, and offers an opportunity to further evaluate the extent to which evolutionary theorizing influenced published views on systematic methodology. These three ichthyologists held radically different theoretical views. The apparent commensurability of claims about relationships among groups of fishes belies differences in what the relationships actually were supposed to be. As well, interpreting classification as genealogical did not lead to agreement about taxonomic methodology; instead, applying evolutionary theory raised new axes of disagreement.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Huxley later adopted genealogical classification, in response to Haeckel. See di Gregorio (1984).
In his (1975) A Century of Zoology at the British Museum Through the Lives of Two Keepers, 1815–1914 Albert E. Gunther noted: “While Albert Gunther lived the family wrote its name as he did, with the “ü”, which is, by rule, maintained in scientific literature.” A.E. Gunther (A.C.L.G. Günther’s grandson) chose to omit the umlaut when referring to his grandfather: “In a biography written over sixty years after Albert Gunther’s death it would hardly be in keeping to retain a form no longer in use.” The Dictionary of National Biography (1927, 2004) lists A.C.L.G. Günther with the umlaut, offering “Gunther” as an alternative form in brackets, though the Anglicized form is used in-text in the 2004 edition. We here follow the usage in the scientific literature, which continues to retain the umlaut.
The museum that was named the British Museum (Natural History) in Günther’s day legally separated from the British Museum in 1963, and was renamed the Natural History Museum in 1992.
Whitehead and Talwar (1976, p. 84) report that Günther, when contacted for advice by the publishers of Macmillan & Co., questioned Jordan’s ability to write a proposed book on western European fishes, calling Jordan a “compiler” and stating that he was “an adherent of the rules of zoolog. nomenclature established by American naturalists to supersede the nomenclature followed in Europe.”
A thorough, though hagiographic, treatment of all aspects of Cope’s life has been presented by Osborn in Cope: Master Naturalist (1931). Davidson’s (1997) biography is far more balanced in its assessment of the man, but largely avoids Cope’s taxonomic theory and practice. We have also drawn biographical information from Osborn’s (1930) shorter sketch, and from Gill (1897).
Ulett also notes that orthogeneticists’ theories may seem unscientific because they devised many technical terms that sound bizarre to us, such as bathmysm, physiogenesis, kinetogenesis, aristogenesis, genepistasis, halmatogenesis, and kyesamechania (Ulett 2014, p. 125). It is worth remembering that strange-sounding technical terms occur in other historical episodes in biological theorizing. Writing on the systematists of the Modern Synthesis, Kruseman (1950) discusses the uses of the terms Jordanont, Linneont, Oecotype, Oecospecies, comparium, commiscuum, convivum, Rassenkreis, and isoreagent. Simpson (1944) is also a fertile source of examples (hypsodonty, homeosis, megaevolution, horotelic, brachytelic, tachytelic, quantum evolution).
See Corsi (2006) for further analysis, in particular of Lamarck’s materialism, vitalism, and his changing views on spontaneous generation.
Levit and Olsson (2006) provide an extremely useful taxonomy of orthogenetic theories.
Cope here cites Cope (1883a).
Günther was editor of the Record of Zoology (known as the Zoological Record from 1870 to present) through 1864 and 1869 and continued to write the section on fishes through 1872.
For example, Gill would have been aware of his Smithsonian colleagues’ frustration with Rafinesque’s haphazard approach to ichthyology and mammology, which resulted in species and genera whose identities were difficult or impossible to verify (Baird, 1857; Girard, 1857) The crux of the problem was that Rafinesque generated names that were not linked to specimens; sometimes his taxa were not based on any direct examination of specimens. Agassiz (1854) wrote that “Nothing is more to be regretted for the progress of natural history in this country than that Rafinesque did not put up somewhere a collection of all the genera and species he had established, with well-authenticated labels...” Jordan (1877) later reported that some of Rafinesque’s species were based on drawings made by Audobon as a prank, to deliberately trick Rafinesque. The taxonomic havoc caused by Rafinesque was a powerful impetus for the museum community’s focus on the value of specimens and direct examination of specimens, an ethos that continues to this day (Woodman, 2016).
Bowler (1996, p. 232) cites this passage to indicate that Gill considered the Dipnoans “among the most primitive fish”. Gill uses the phrase “most generalized” when referring to living forms that have diverged the least from a (hypothesized) “primitive stock”, but does not here refer to living Dipnoans as “primitive”.
Panchen (1992, p. 31) claims that in Gill’s trees, “the horizontal axis is not a measure of morphology or anything else”, and that Gill’s trees resemble cladistic analysis in this respect. However, Gill repeatedly discussed the relative degree of specialization of groups and consistently placed groups that he considered more generalized on the left versus right branch.
See Hennig (1966) pp. 119–122.
See Sepkoski (2009, 2012) for analysis of attempts to synthesize paleontology and evolutionary theory (and their discontents). On a standard historiographic narrative, during the period between Darwin’s 1859 publication and the Modern Synthesis, the theoretical development of such a paleobiology was hindered by under-appreciation of the power of selection, enthusiasm for orthogenetic theories, and pessimism about the fossil record. As Bowler (2009, p. xiii) remarked and Allmon (2020) has demonstrated, a re-evaluation of the history of paleontology is necessary to avoid assumption that theoretical progress has been hindered by failure to adopt neo-Darwinist views.
Regan’s key systematic papers were published in series between 1903 and 1923 primarily in Annals and Magazine of Natural History See also Greenwood et al. (1966, p. 345).
References
Agassiz, L. (1854). Notice of a collection of fishes from the southern bend of the Tennessee River. American Journal of Science and Arts, 17(49), 352–369.
Agassiz, L. (1857). Contribution to the natural history of the United States of America, Vol. 1. Little Brown and Company.
Agassiz, L. (1859). An essay on classification. Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, & Roberts, and Trübner & Co.
Allmon, W. D. (2020). Invertebrate paleontology and evolutionary thinking in the US and Britain, 1860–1940. Journal of the History of Biology, 53(3), 423–450.
Amundson, R. (2005). The changing role of the embryo in evolutionary thought: Roots of evo-devo. Cambridge University Press.
Baird, S. (1857). Reports of explorations and surveys, to ascertain the most practicable and economical route for a railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean, Vol. 8. Beverley Tucker.
Bather, F. A. (1927). Biological classification: Past and future. Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, 83(2), l19–l20.
Boulenger, G. (1904). Teleostei. In S. Harmer & A. Shipley (Eds.), The Cambridge natural history, Vol. VII, (pp. 539–727). Macmillan and Co. Limited.
Bowler, P. J. (1977). Edward Drinker Cope and the changing structure of evolutionary theory. Isis, 68(2), 249–265.
Bowler, P. J. (1983). The eclipse of Darwinism: Anti-Darwinian evolution theories in the decades around nineteen hundred. Johns Hopkins University Press.
Bowler, P. J. (1989). Evolution: The history of an idea. University of California Press.
Bowler, P. J. (1996). Life’s splendid drama. University of Chicago Press.
Bowler, P. J. (2009). Evolution: The history of an Edea (3rd ed.). University of California Press.
Bowler, P. J. (2017). American palaeontology and the reception of Darwinism. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 66, 3–7.
Brinkman, P. D. (2010). The second Jurassic dinosaur rush: Museums and paleontology in America at the turn of the twentieth century. University of Chicago Press.
Brinkman, P. D. (2015). The ‘Chicago idea’: Patronage, authority, and scientific autonomy at the Field Columbian Museum, 1893–97. Museum History Journal, 8(2), 168–187.
Brinkman, P. D. (2016). Edward Drinker Cope’s final feud. Archives of Natural History, 43(2), 305–320.
Brundin, L. (1966). Transarctic relationships and their significance, as evidenced by chironomic midges with a monograph on the subfamilies Podonominae and Aphroteniinae and the austral Heptagyiae. Kungliga Svenska Vetenskapsakademiens Handlingar, 11(1), 1–472.
Burkhardt, R. W. (2013). Lamarck, evolution, and the inheritance of acquired characters. Genetics, 194(4), 793–805.
Burkhardt, F., & Smith, S. (Eds.). (1985). A calendar of the correspondence of Charles Darwin, 1821–1882. Garland Publishing Inc.
Cain, A. (1958). Logic and memory in Linnaeus’s system of taxonomy. Proceedings of the Linnaean Society of London, 170(1–2), 185–217.
Ceccarelli, D. (2019). Between social and biological heredity: Cope and Baldwin on evolution, inheritance, and mind. Journal of the History of Biology, 52(1), 161–194.
Cope, E. D. (1891). Alfred Russell Wallace. In Evolution in science, philosophy, and art: Popular lectures and discussions before the Brooklyn Ethical Association. D. Appleton and Company.
Cope, E. D. (1859). On the primary divisions of the Salamandridae, with descriptions of two new species. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural History of Philadelphia, 11, 122–128.
Cope, E. D. (1868). On the origin of Genera. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural History of Philadelphia, 20, 147–148.
Cope, E. D. (1869). Synopsis of the Cyprinidae of Pennsylvania. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 13(3), 351–410.
Cope, E. D. (1870). On the system of Batrachia Anura of the British Museum catalogue. American Journal of Science, 3(1), 198–203.
Cope, E. D. (1871). Contribution to the ichthyology of the Lesser Antilles. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 14, 445–483.
Cope, E. D. (1871). Observations on the systematic relations of the fishes. The American Naturalist, 5(8/9), 579–593.
Cope, E. D. (1871). On the homologies of some of the cranial bones of the Reptilia, and their bearing on the systematic arrangement of the class. Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 19, 194–247.
Cope, E. D. (1878). On the classification of the extinct fishes of the lower types. In F. W. Putnam (Ed.), Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (pp. 292–300). Salem Press.
Cope, E. D. (1878). The relation of animal motion to animal evolution. American Naturalist, 12, 40–48.
Cope, E. D. (1883). On the evidence for evolution in the history of the extinct Mammalia. Science, 2(30), 272–279.
Cope, E. D. (1883). On the trituberculate type of molar tooth in the Mammalia. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 21(114), 324–326.
Cope, E. D. (1884). On the structure of the skull in the Elasmobranch genus Didymodus. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 21(116), 572–590.
Cope, E. D. (1885). On the evolution of the Vertebrata, progressive and retrogressive. The American Naturalist, 19(2), 140–148.
Cope, E. D. (1885). On the evolution of the Vertebrata, progressive and retrogressive (continued). American Naturalist, 19(3), 234–247.
Cope, E. D. (1887). Zittel’s manual of paleontology. The American Naturalist, 21(11), 1014–1019.
Cope, E. D. (1889). On inheritance and evolution. American Naturalist, 23(276), 1058–1071.
Cope, E. D. (1896). The primary factors of organic evolution. The Open Court Publishing Company.
Corsi, P. (2011). Jean-baptiste lamarck: From myth to history. In S. B. Gissis & E. Jablonka (Eds.), Transformations of Lamarckism: From subtle fluids to molecular biology (pp. 9–18). MIT Press.
Corsi, P., Gayon, J., Gohau, G., & Tirard, S. (Eds.). (2006). Lamarck, philosophe de la nature. Presses Universitaires de France.
Dall, W. H. (1916). Biographical memoir of Theodore Nicholas Gill 1837–1914. National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoirs, 8, 313–343.
Darwin Correspondence Project (2021). https://www.darwincorrespondenceproject.ac.uk/letter/DCP-LETT-684.xml
Darwin, C. (1859). On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. John Murray.
Davidson, J. P. (1997). The bone sharp: The life of Edward Drinker Cope. Academy of Natural Sciences.
Davis, H. W. C., & Weaver, J. R. H. (Eds.). (1927). Dictionary of national biography 1912–1921. Oxford University Press.
de Candolle, A. P. (1813). Théorie élémentaire de la botanique; ou, exposition des prinicpes de la classification naturelle et de l’art de décrire et d’étudier les végétaux. Déterville.
Di Gregorio, M. A. (1984). T. H. Huxley’s place in natural science. Yale University Press.
Dohrn, A. (1875). Der Ursprung der Wirbelthiere und das Princip des Functionswechsels: genealogische Skizzen. Engelmann.
Ebach, M., Morrone, J. J., & Williams, D. M. (2008). A new cladistics of cladists. Biology and Philosophy, 23(1), 153–156.
Eldredge, N., & Cracraft, J. (1980). Phylogenetic patterns and the evolutionary process. Columbia University Press.
Gill, T. (1864). Synopsis of the pleuronectoids of the eastern coast of North America. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural History of Philadelphia, 16, 214–220.
Gill, T. (1870). On the relations of the orders of mammals. Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 19, 267–270.
Gill, T. (1872). Arrangement of the families of fishes, or class Pisces, Marsipobranchii, and Leptocardii, Vol. 11. Smithsonian Institution.
Gill, T. (1872). On the characteristics of the primary groups of the class of mammals. In J. Lovering (Ed.), Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Vol. 20, (pp. 284–306). John Wilson and Sons.
Gill, T. (1873). On the limits of the class of fishes. American Naturalist, 7, 71–79.
Gill, T. (1881). Günther’s ichthyology. Nation, 33(841), 120–122.
Gill, T. (1893). Families and subfamilies of fishes. Memoirs of the Natural Academy of Sciences, 6, 125–138.
Gill, T. (1897). Edward Drinker Cope, naturalist—a chapter in the history of science. Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 41, 1–30.
Gill, T. (1905). A new introduction to the study of fishes. Science, 21(539), 653–661.
Girard, C. (1857). Researches upon the Cyprinoid fishes inhabiting the fresh waters of the United States of America, west of the Mississippi Valley, from specimens in the Museum of the Smithsonian Institution. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 8, 165–213.
Gould, S. J. (2002). The structure of evolutionary theory. Belknap Press.
Greenwood, P. H., Rosen, D. E., Weitzman, S. H., & Myers, G. S. (1966). Phyletic studies of Teleostean fishes, with a provisional classification of living forms. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, 131(4), 339–455.
Gregory, W. K. (1907). The orders of Teleostomous fishes. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 17(3), 437–508.
Günther, A. C. (1866). Memoir on the fishes of the states of Central America collected by messrs. Salvin Godman and Capt. Dow. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, 600–604.
Günther, A. C. (1864). The record of zoological literature. Pisces, 82(1), 144.
Günther, A. C. (1867). The record of zoological literature. Pisces, 4, 157.
Günther, A. C. (1868). The record of zoological literature. Pisces, 5, 139.
Günther, A. C. (1869). An account of the fishes of the states of Central America, based on collections made by Capt. J. M. Dow, F. Godman, Esq., and O. Salvin, Esq. The Transaction of the Zoological Society of London, 6(7), 377–494.
Günther, A. C. (1872). Description of Ceratodus, a genus of Ganoid fishes, recently discovered in rivers of Queensland, Australia. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 161, 511–571.
Günther, A. C. (1873). Zoological record. Pisces, 8, 89–112.
Günther, A. C. (1880). An introduction to the study of fishes. Adams & Black.
Günther, A. C. L. G. (1882). Review of an introduction to the study of fishes. Quarterly Review, 153, 241–266.
Gunther, A. E. (1975). A century of zoology at the British Museum through the lives of two keepers, 1815–1914. Dawsons of Pall Mall.
Günther, A. C. (1981). Catalogue of the fishes in the British Museum. A.J. Reprints Co.
Hennig, W. (1966). Phylogenetic systematics. University of Illinois Press.
Huelsenbeck, J. P., Swofford, D. L., Cunningham, C. W., Bull, J. J., & Waddell, P. J. (1994). Is character weighting a panacea for the problem of data heterogeneity in phylogenetic analysis? Systematic Biology, 43, 288–291.
Hull, D. (1965). The effect of essentialism on taxonomy—two thousand years of stasis. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 16(61), 1–18.
Huxley, T. H. (1871). Principles and methods of palaeontology. In Annual report of the board of regents of the Smithsonian Institution, (pp. 363–388). Government Printing Office.
Huxley, T. H. (1863). On our knowledge of the causes of the phenomena of organic nature. Robert Hardwicke.
J. L., W. M., & S. V. (1915). Obituary notices of fellows deceased. Proceedings Linnean Society London, 88(608), i–xxxviii.
Jordan, D. S. (1931). Theodore Nicholas Gill. In Dictionary of American biography, vol. VII, (pp. 285–286). Charles Scribner’s Sons.
Jordan, D. S. (1877). Contributions to ichthology: Based primarily on the collections of the United States National Museum: Review of Rafinesque’s memoirs on North American fishes. Bulleton of the United States National Museum, 1(9), 1–53.
Jordan, D. S. (1905). A guide to the study of fishes, Vol. 1. Henry Holt and Company.
Jordan, D. S. (1922). The days of a man. World Book Co.
Kruseman, W. (1950). Gradation of language in biological systematics. Synthese, 8(3), 175–181.
Levit, G. S., & Olsson, L. (2006). “Evolution on rails’’: Mechanisms and levels of orthogenesis. Annals for the History and Philosophy of Biology, 11, 97–136.
Leviton, A. E., & Aldrich, M. L. (1981). William O. Ayres, pioneer ichthyologist in California. In American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists 61st Annual Meeting.
Manias, C. (2017). Progress in life’s history: Linking Darwinism and palaeontology in Britain, 1860–1914. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 66, 18–26.
Matthew, H. C. G., Harrison, B., & Long, R. J. (Eds.). (2004). Oxford dictionary of national biography (Vol. 24). Oxford University Press.
Mayr, E. (1982). The growth of biological thought: Diversity, evolution, and inheritance. Harvard University Press.
Mayr, E. (1998). The role of systematics in the evolutionary synthesis. In E. Mayr & W. B. Provine (Eds.), The evolutionary synthesis: Perspectives on the unification of biology (pp. 123–136). Harvard University Press.
Mill, J. S. (1843). A system of logic, ratiocinative and inductive: Being a connected view of the principles of evidence and the methods of scientific investigation, Vol. 1. John W. Parker.
Müller, J. (1845). Über den Bau und die Grenzen der Ganoiden und über das natürliche System der Fische. Archiv für Naturgeschichte. Gedruckt in der Druckerei der Königlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften
Müller, J. (1844). Über den Bau und die Grenzen der Ganoiden und über das natüraliche System der Fische. Berlin Akademie der Wissenchaften.
Müller, J. (1846). Further remarks on the structure of the Ganoidei. Scientific Memoirs, 4, 543–558.
Müller, J. (1846). On the structure and characters of the Ganoidei, and on the natural classification of fish. Scientific Memoirs, 4, 499–558.
Novick, A. (2016). On the origins of the Quinarian system of classification. Journal of the History of Biology, 49(1), 95–133.
Nyhart, L. K. (1999). Life’s splendid drama: Evolutionary biology and the reconstruction of life’s ancestry, 1860–1940 by Peter J. Bowler. Isis, 90, 607.
Osborn, H. F. (1930). Biographical memoir of Edward Drinker Cope 1840–1897. National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoirs, 13(3), 129–317.
Osborn, H. F., Cope, E. D., & Warren, H. A. (1931). Cope: Master naturalist. The life and letters of Edward Drinker Cope, with a bibliography of his writings classified by subject. Princeton University Press.
Ospovat, D. (1995). The development of Darwin’s Theory: Natural history, natural theology, and natural selection. Cambridge University Press.
Panchen, A. L. (1992). Classification, evolution, and the nature of biology. Cambridge University Press.
Patterson, C. (1977). The contribution of paleontology to Teleostean phylogeny. In M. K. Hecht, P. C. Goody, & B. M. Hecht (Eds.), Major patterns in vertebrate evolution (pp. 579–635). Plenum Press.
Quinn, A. (2016). Phylogenetic inference to the best explanation and the bad lot argument. Synthese, 193(9), 3025–3039.
Quinn, A. (2017). Charles Girard: Relationships and representation in nineteenth century systematics. Journal of the History of Biology, 50(3), 609–643.
Rieppel, O. (2010). The series, the network, and the tree: Changing metaphors of order in nature. Biology and Philosophy, 25(4), 475–496.
Rieppel, O. (2016). Phylogenetic systematics: Haeckel to Hennig. CRC Press.
Rieppel, O., & Kearney, M. (2007). The poverty of taxonomic characters. Biology and Philosophy, 22(1), 95–113.
Sepkoski, D. (2009). The emergence of paleobiology. In D. Sepkoski & M. Ruse (Eds.), The paleobiological revolution: Essays on the growth of modern paleontology (pp. 15–42). University of Chicago Press.
Sepkoski, D. (2012). Rereading the fossil record: The growth of paleobiology as an evolutionary discipline. University of Chicago Press.
Shanahan, T. (2011). Phylogenetic inertia and Darwin’s higher law. Studies in History and Philosophy of the Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 42(1), 60–68.
Shor, E. N. (1974). The fossil Feud between Cope and OC Marsh (between). Exposition Press.
Simpson, G. G. (1944). Tempo and mode in evolution. Columbia University Press.
Smith, G., Davis, H. W. C., & Weaver, J. R. H. (1927). The dictionary of national biography, 1912–1921. Oxford University Press.
Sober, E. (1988). Reconstructing the past: Parsimony, evolution, and inference (1st ed.). MIT Press.
Stearn, W. T. (1981). The Natural History Museum at South Kensington: A history of the British Museum (Natural History) 1753–1980. William Heinemann Ltd.
Ulett, M. A. (2014). Making the case for orthogenesis: The popularization of definitely directed evolution (1890–1926). Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 45, 124–132.
Whewell, W. (1837). History of the inductive sciences, Vol. 3. John W. Parker.
Whewell, W. (1840). Philosophy of the inductive sciences, founded upon their history, Vol. 1. John W. Parker.
Whewell, W. (1847). The philosophy of the inductive sciences: Founded upon their history, 2nd ed., Vol. 1. John W. Parker.
Whitehead, P., & Talwar, P. (1976). Francis Day (1829–1889) and his collections of Indian fishes. Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History), 5, 1–189.
Wiley, E. O., Siegel-Causey, D., Brooks, D., & Funk, V. (1991). The compleat cladist. The University of Kansas Museum of Natural History.
Wilkins, J. (2009). Species: A history of the idea. University of California Press.
Winsor, M. P. (2021). “I would sooner die than give up”: Huxley and Darwin’s deep disagreement. History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences, 43(2), 53. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40656-021-00409-3
Winsor, M. P. (1976). Starfish, jellyfish, and the order of life: Issues in nineteenth century science. Yale University Press.
Winsor, M. P. (1991). Reading the shape of nature: Comparative zoology at the Agassiz museum. University of Chicago Press.
Winsor, M. P. (2003). Non-essentialist methods in pre-Darwinian taxonomy. Biology and Philosophy, 18, 387–400.
Winsor, M. P. (2006). The creation of the essentialism story. History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences, 28, 149–174.
Winsor, M. P. (2015). Considering affinity: An ethereal conversation (part two of three). Endeavour, 39(2), 116–126.
Woodman, N. (2016). Pranked by Audobon: Constantine S. Rafinesque’s description of John James Audobon’s imaginary Kentucky mammals. Archives of Natural History, 43(1), 95–108.
Acknowledgements
We thank William Kimler, Ted Pietsch, and Gareth Nelson for encouragement and comments on an early version of this paper, and Polly Winsor for encouragement and discussion. We thank two anonymous reviewers for thorough and extremely helpful comments.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors have no conflict of interest.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Jackson, J.R., Quinn, A. Post-Darwinian fish classifications: theories and methodologies of Günther, Cope, and Gill. HPLS 45, 4 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40656-022-00556-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40656-022-00556-1