Wells and Wellington affair

Wells and Wellington affair.
The Wells and Wellington affair was a dispute involving the Australian Journal of Herpetology, a scientific journal on the study of amphibians and reptiles published beginning in 1981 by the Australian Herpetologists' League. Richard Wells, a student, served as the editor-in-chief of the peer-reviewed periodical, with an editorial board of three researchers. Wells stopped communicating with his board for two years before publishing three unreviewed papers in the journal in 1983 and 1985 which he coauthored with teacher C. Ross Wellington. The papers reorganized the taxonomy of Australia's and New Zealand's amphibians and reptiles, and proposed over 700 changes to their scientific names. The herpetological community brought a case to the ICZN to suppress the new names, but the commission eventually opted not to decide, leaving some of Wells and Wellington's names available. As of 2020, 24 of their specific names remained valid senior synonyms (example pictured).