On the obligations of authors to correctly register works in ZooBank in advance of online publication of taxonomic works

Coca-Abia and Romero-Samper’s paper on the identity of Costelytra zealandica (White 1846) appears in this issue, and while it is not the first appearance of this paper, it is the first taxonomically valid appearance of this work. On its own, the earlier online release of this paper was not available as a valid taxonomic work as the paper was not properly registered with the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) via Zoobank (www.zoobank.org) prior to publication. Such errors cannot be rectified by a corrigendum alone correcting the registration, and as a consequence the nomenclatorial acts contained in the work have no legitimacy until such time as the paginated issue or print edition is released. It cannot be stressed enough that authors wishing to have taxonomic papers released online before the print are entirely responsible for the correct registration of the paper prior to online publication and the citation of the Zoobank registration number of the paper in the online version. Authors of taxonomic works may always opt to have their work withheld from online release until it is printed, in which case registration with Zoobank is not required. This policy applies to works containing novel nomenclatural decisions, and is not expected to have any impact on the online publication of papers covering other entomological fields. Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to ICZN commissioner Zhi-Qiang Zhang for his advice on this matter.