New Li JingKe beetle book

[Adam Cotton]

Today I received an e-mail from Li Jingke with the following text and an attachment:


Small New Book

LiJingke, Primary color illustrations of Subfamily Euchirinae and Dynastinae in China (Coleoptera:Scarabaeidae), P.1-56,2 subfamily 77species/subspecies(Euchirinae 11 species and Dynastinae 38 species photo),include new subspecies Allomyrina dichotomus xizangensis.

100US$ include postage，Printing50.

By Li Jingke (Personal Publishing),

If you buy, please use the registered envelope, send cash $ 100

Mr.Li Jingke, (ADDRESS REMOVED as the Insect Collectors' Forum is not involved in commercial activities)

I received your money, The bookwill be senttoyouraddress..

your,

Li Jingke



Here's a small version of the photo attached to the e-mail:



Adam.

PS. Even though there are only 50 copies and the book is privately published, it seems that the new subspecies name probably meets the ICZN Code criteria for publication. This does depend on whether or not the description itself fulfils all relevant articles which confer availability on the name.

[Adam Cotton]

However, this does raise a few questions:

Who would be prepared to send $100 cash in a registered envelope to China?

What will happen if he receives more than 50 payments? Will he return the excess payments?

Adam.

[Adam Cotton]

It has just occurred to me that perhaps there may actually be no 50 copy print run, and the author plans just to print copies on the colour printer plugged into his computer as he receives payments. That way he could sell many more than just 50 copies, and who would know!

Li JingKe wouldn't do that ... would he?

Mind you, if he hasn't actually had 50 copies printed on 21st June 2015 as stated, that would constitute 'print on demand' which would contravene Article 9.7 and would render the new name unavailable.

Adam.

[trehopr1]

Excellent detective work as always Adam. It all sounds VERY questionable. I am not familiar with this individual. Is he a credible authority of some sort? Does he have any other credits to his name? I think that if I were interested in this kind of subject I'd still keep my money close at hand until I heard something positive from other collectors.

[mygos]

I agree with you Adam, and as Trehopr1 says : very questionnable !
I also received his email ...

A+, Michel

[Deleted]

I would not believe a word Jingke says or writes, his past form says he can't be trusted at all, for his next trick he will "discover" papilio homerus in South Yorkshire, an all new ssp.

[Adam Cotton]

Well, he has a huge reputation built up over many years ...

... particularly for falsifying data in order to sell cheap specimens from one locality as rare, high value specimens from somewhere new or hard to obtain localities.

For example he sold Sichuan Papilio krishna and P. bootes at much higher prices supposedly from Laos. Papilio krishna does not occur in Laos, and the specimens are identical to ssp. charlesi from Sichuan (retail price $5 as opposed to $30 for the fake Laos specimens, and doubtless he paid a lot less for them direct from the suppliers). Papilio krishna from Laos would not look like charlesi even if it was there. As for P. bootes, which does occur in Laos, his specimens looked identical to the Sichuan white form and nothing like the Lao subspecies at all. This was detailed by Indowings in the old Insectnet forum with photos. Sadly those posts have long gone from the internet along with other threads about his nefarious activities.

A Cicindelid researcher told me that he bought a number of series of one species from various localities across Asia, but when they did the DNA it became obvious that all of them were from the same place.

Vadim Tshikolovets told me that he examined a large series of butterflies sent to Europe supposedly from Qinghai, but the specimens were obviously common Sichuan material.

I am sure that there are a multitude of other horror stories that people can recount.

Adam.