Van Stanley Bartholomew Wallach (born 1947) is an American

herpetologist Herpetology (from Greek ἑρπετόν ''herpetón'', meaning "reptile" or "creeping animal") is the branch of zoology concerned with the study of amphibians (including frogs, toads, salamanders, newts, and caecilians (gymnophiona)) and rept ...

and an expert on blindsnakes and on the systematics, internal anatomy, and taxonomy of snakes. He has contributed to the descriptions of at least 46 species of snakes and has conducted fieldwork on tropical snakes in the Philippines, Nicaragua, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. For many years Wallach worked as a Curatorial Assistant at the

Museum of Comparative Zoology A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, ...

. He retired from the museum in 2012, but he continues to work on snake taxonomy. Wallach was the lead editor of the 1,227 page authoritative reference book ''Snakes of the World''. In the 2000s Wallach was one of several herpetologists who became embroiled in a dispute with

Raymond Hoser Raymond Terrence Hoser (born 1962) is an Australian snake-catcher and author. Since 1976, he has written books and articles about official corruption in Australia. He has also written works on Australian frogs and reptiles. Hoser's work on herp ...

, a self-published Australian herpetologist, over proper nomenclatorial acts. Hoser charged Wallach with attempting to name species that Hoser had already described in his self-published journal. Wallach's coauthors pointed out that Hoser had not complied with the provisions of the

ICZN Code The International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) is a widely accepted convention in zoology that rules the formal scientific naming of organisms treated as animals. It is also informally known as the ICZN Code, for its publisher, the ...

. The debate became quite heated, with Hoser charging Wallach with "scientific fraud", whereas nine prominent biologists published a paper in which they, not so indirectly, called Hoser a "taxonomic vandal". The biologists suggested that ''the herpetofaunal taxa published on or after 1 January 2000 that can be objectively classed as unscientific, non-peer reviewed, misguided in intent or presentation, fraudulent, or lacking evidence'' should not be used and offered a list of recommended substitutions, as a temporary stop-gap ''until the ICZN has developed a suitable response to actions of taxonomic vandals''. They went on to list over 200 invalid taxonomic names that had been offered by Hoser.

Taxon named in his honor

*'' Boiga wallachi'' Das, 1998Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . ("Wallach", p. 279).

Taxa credited

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wallach, Van Stanley Bartholomew American herpetologists 1947 births Living people