Reply to the “Correction to Catalogue of herpetological specimens from Meghalaya, India at the Sálim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History (SACON)” by P. Karthik REPLY

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ISSN 0974-7907 (Online); ISSN 0974-7893 (Print) In a recent issue of the Journal of Threatened Taxa, we published a catalogue of hereptofaunal specimens collected from Meghalaya as a part of an on-going project entitled "Characterization of Community Reserves and Assessment of their Conservation Values in Meghalaya" (Chandramouli et al. 2021a).
Strangely, Karthik (2021) has 'reacted' to our publication with a 'corrigendum' with claims of "imprecise and misleading information" having been presented. Therefore, we are constrained to respond to his allegations in this publication. In principle, errata and corrigenda are published either by the authors of a publication (us) or the publisher (JoTT, in this case). Therefore, Karthik (2021) is not entitled to be titled as a corrigendum to the article that the author was not a part of. To begin with, the author P. Karthik (hereafter PK), who was hired on a temporary basis as a Junior Research Biologist for this project, collected a part of the specimens presented in the catalogue (Chandramouli et al. 2021a) and was initially invited to be a co-author, when the publication was conceived. However, PK voluntarily declined to be a part of this exercise with a request to remove his name from the authors list. His decision was respected by the other principal investigators. We hereby convey the fact that for the publication of another article (Chandramouli et al. 2021b) from the same project, involving the same team, PK was also a co-author (Chandramouli et al., 2021a). Had he not declined our offer of co-authorship for the publication on the catalogue (Chandramouli et al. 2021b), he would have been a part of this publication as well. It is unreasonable on the part of PK to accuse and relegate the efforts of Chandramouli et al. (2021b) in his response. We present our arguments for his allegations The title of our article "Catalogue of herpetological specimens from Meghalaya, India at the Sálim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History (SACON)" clearly states that we are dealing only with the herpetological collections from the state of Meghalaya and not the rest.

2.
"As it is catalogued and the specimens are vouchered for future studies, therefore the author ought to disclose the SACON accreditation for upholding a large number of specimens." (sic.) Response: PK himself was a co-author in Ganesh et al. (2020) cataloguing a part of the collections at SACON and hence, the above statement is selfcontradictory. The specimens were collected with proper permits from the state forest department of Meghalaya. It is an on-going study and hence, all the collected specimens are under the custody of SACON. In future if any taxonomic work on these specimens is addressed then those specimens will be deposited in an accredited repository.

3.
The author stated the collector name P. Karthik (instead of Pandi Karthik). The collector name is not included as an author and does not need to be abbreviated; rather, it should be the academic name. Response: The author (PK) himself has published articles (Ganesh et al., 2020; Chandramouli et al., 2021a) as "P. Karthik" and the same has been followed here. In addition, the official records submitted to SACON by him mentions his name as "P. Karthik". Moreover, it is immaterial and inconsequential to expand his first name, as long as he has been credited for the collection (see Acknowledgements in Chandramouli et al. 2021b).

4.
Furthermore, the author failed to follow the word-uniformity (i.e.) on species location and specimen voucher number; a few places the specimen voucher number comes along with institute acronyms (i.e., SACON VA 102) and someplace it does not (i.e., VA 72 & 73). Response: As the publication deals with the collections from Meghalaya at SACON, it is not necessary to repeat the institutional acronym SACON in each entry and whether or not to mention it is solely at the discretion of the authors and the journal format. To substantiate this, we point out that Karthik (2021) himself mentions the voucher numbers of certain samples e.g. Calotes cf. irrawadi as "SACON VR 205, VR 240, VR 245", wherein, VR 240, VR 245 do not bear the prefix SACON, and is presumed to be understood.

5.
Also, a paucity of information on preservation methods and collection permit information (follow Al-Razi et al. 2021& Mirza et al. 2021. As a concurring collector, the specimens were fixed in 7 % formaldehyde solution and later stored in 75 % ethanol. A few specimens of tail tip tissues were preserved in 95% ethanol for molecular work prior to specimen fixation (Mirza et al. 2021). For future taxonomical investigation, the specimens and tissue samples have been deposited in Sálim Ali Centre for Ornithology & Natural History (SACON). Response: The concerned authorities: i.e., the Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildlife) and Chief Wildlife Warden (CWLW), Meghalaya, and officers of the Forest and Environment Department, Government of Meghalaya have been duly acknowledged in our publication for according permits for the study, based on which P. Karthik and other researchers of this project were permitted to visit and collect data / specimens from Meghalaya. It is to be noted that the permission was given to the project. In fact, it is to be questioned as to how Karthik (2021) can be published since the scientist to whom permission was granted does not feature in Karthik (2021). The information on whether or not tissues have been extracted and stored at SACON is irrelevant and unnecessary for this publication.

6.
Locality Response: Despite being aware of the information on their origin, PK has neither documented and submitted this information to the project PIs, nor informed us when the first draft of the catalogue was shared with him while inviting him to be a co-author. It is unjust and unfair on the part of PK, engaged as a Junior Research Biologist, to have deliberately concealed all this information from the PIs and to raise a query on their origin now, after publication. Nevertheless, as fellow scientists, we are happy that PK has managed to furnish this vital information at least now that we take to be good for the larger benefit of science.

7.
"Theloderma cf. Because, the species resemble to T. cf. albopunctatum based on its morphometric characters and other information provided (Mian et al. 2017). Also, conferring the geographic proximity and the species complicity in the molecular nest. Therein, I refer to the species again as T. cf. albopunctatum. Additionally, an integrated taxonomic approach would be detrimental in resolving species-level complicity." Response: Frost (2021), under the accounts of Theloderma albopunctatum states that "populations from northeastern India, Myanmar, to and including Thailand are provisionally attached to this species but likely represent a complex of unnamed species". Therefore, we disagree with the unsubstantiated claims made by Karthik (2021) who failed to fully substantiate his claims by describing the specimens.

"Oligodon cinereus (Günther, 1864)
Location: SACON VR 214 -unsexed adult from Daribogkre, Meghalaya (coll. Pandi Karthik). Comment: The author has named SACON VR 214 as an Oligodon juglandifer, but it is not. The unsexed adult road crush specimen was identified as an Oligodon cinereus." Response: Karthik (2021) without any idea of the specimen in question makes an emphatic, premature statement on the identity of SACON VR 214. The road-killed O. cinereus which he states to be from Daribokgre, is presently not traceable in the collections and VR 214, which is a totally different specimen has been identified by us as O. juglandifer. 9. "Dendrelaphis proarchos (Wall, 1909) Comment: The author had stated the specimen SACON VR 210 -adult from Meghalaya (coll. Pandi Karthik). No such specimen was collected by Pandi Karthik from the genus 'Dendrelaphis', nevertheless, the author may have been misinformed because one sample from the genus Dendrelaphis sp. is available at SACON that perhaps collected from the Anaikatty". Response: Perhaps the collector information could have been misconstrued. But yet, we could not help ourselves but to wonder, how could PK comment so emphatically about the provenance of a specimen that he himself states to not have collected. Moreover, there has been a team of seven members involved in the project who were at Meghalaya, one of whom could have been its collector.
In conclusion, it is apparent that the intentions of Karthik (2021) have just been defamation of the article published by Chandramouli et al. (2021b) which he voluntarily declined to be a part of. Our explanations clearly point at the personal lamentations rather than scientific concerns of Karthik (2021). We strongly discourage such unethical practices in scientific forums.

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