LISTS OF EUROPEAN SPECIES OF AMPHIBIANS AND REPTILES - WILL WE SOON BE REACHING STABILITY

Zoologists at the end of our century are faced with a strong demand fr om ''society'' for ''final and definitive'' lists of taxon names: such lists are requested in particular by administrations and users of ''o fficial lists'' of species. This has entailed, even among some profess ional taxonomists, a strong movement in favour of artificial stability of taxon names and of a replacement of the basic rule of the Internat ional Code of Zoological Nomenclature, the rule of priority, by a so-c alled ''rule of common usage''. The aim of this paper is to show, taki ng the example of European anuran amphibians, that this way of posing the question is wrong. The major factor of change in taxon names in zo ology is taxonomic research, not nomenclatural grooming. Contrary to w hat is often believed, even in ''well-known'' regions like Europe, num erous new species have recently been discovered, in part through the u se of new research techniques (electrophoresis, bioacoustics, etc.), b ut also as a result of better exploration of natural populations: the misleading idea that ''the European fauna is well known'' has acted as a brake against recognition of new taxa when these were discovered in the field. Name changes due to the mere application of nomenclatural rules are much less numerous than those due to the progress of taxonom ic research, and they would be even much less common if zoologists and editors paid more attention to the international rules of nomenclatur e. We are still far from reaching the ''holy grail'' of ''final lists' ' of animal faunae, even in Europe, and, rather than trying to comply with this request from ''society'', zoologists should explain why this goal will not be reached soon, and that the only way to accelerate th e movement towards it would be the creation of numerous positions of p rofessional zoologists and the increase of funds afforded to basic zoo logical research in Europe.