A Survey of Keys Associated with the Description of New Animal Genera

Identification keys are important aspects of taxonomic research, but their quality varies substantially. I surveyed all the keys associated with the description of new non-insect animal genera that were available to me (through online and library resources or emailed pdfs received upon request from authors) published in 2021 and 2022. I found 50 keys in 45 papers that permitted the identification of 441 genera, of which 82 were newly described. I assessed the same variables as treated in an earlier paper that dealt only with insects over the same time period. Of the 17 variables evaluated as to whether the key was as useful as possible or whether it was suboptimal, an average of 5.6 were found wanting, very similar to the average for insects (5.7). Important differences between insect and non-insect datasets are: (i) the relatively lower frequency of identification keys associated with the description of new genera in non-insect, (ii) the relatively higher level in the taxonomic hierarchy to which the keys applied in non-insects and (iii) the higher proportion of keys that were to the global fauna in non-insect papers. The frequencies of occurrence of suboptimality among the 17 variables were also similar between the two datasets. Evaluation of non-insect papers suggested several additional recommendations for authors to bear in mind when constructing a key above those resulting from a similar survey of insects.