Australasian Journal of Herpetology Issue 18 CoverSnakeman Raymond Hoser wins ICZN Case 3601
Case with global ramifications is hailed as a major victory in favour of wildlife conservation and in the battle against scientific fraud and taxonomic vandalism.

In a ruling dated 30 April 2021, the International Commission of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) issued a long-awaited judgement and ruling in favour of leading scientist, Raymond Hoser.
Better known as The Snakeman, Raymond Hoser has blue ribbon scientific credentials, having been at the forefront of wildlife research and discovery for more than 50 years.
The case arose when a renagade university lecturer in Wales, Wolfgang Wuster hatched a plot to override the 200 year set of rules governing scientific research, discovery and naming organisms, in favour of his own doctrine, later labelled "The Kaiser veto", in honour of his criminal co-conspirator Hinrich Kaiser.
The plan, first hatched in 2009 was to simply steal works from other scientists, rename species and then to claim discovery of those species.
It was simply an act of personal self-gratification on a grand scale.
To that end, Wuster and his gang of thieves commenced naming species previously named by other scientists.
To further cement their names in history, Wolfgang Wuster shopped his idea to other gullable scientists with the promise that if they stole "name authority" from a list of targetted authors, Wuster's group would ensure that their names would be used instead of the legitimate ICZN names.
To that extent, they engaged in high level SEO (known better as search engine optimisation) to ensure that the Wuster names appeared in Google searches for correct names and that the correct names did not.
The gang hijacked Wikipedia and other reference sites online and posted their rubbish there and blocking corrections.
They also targetted vulnerable journals such as the PRINO (peer reviewed in name only) online journal Zootaxa by getting members of their group into editorial positions to allow their non-science papers stealing works from others (without citing them) to be published.
Wuster et al. also engaged in so-called "Negative SEO" to attack and tarnish the reputations of the scientists they had targetted to steal work from and whom they intended "taking the glory" for their earlier discoveries.
While Snakeman Raymond Hoser was clearly the main target, due in part to his repuation as powerhouse when it came to the rapid discovery and naming of new species, making him the most prolific discoverer of new species in the last 100 years, there were other targets, including Richard Wells and Ross Wellington, two eminent Australians who have discovered more species and genera in Australia that anyone else in history, Bill McCord, a turtle expert from the USA, and a few of the great scientists from the 1800's such as Wilhelm Karl Hartwich Peters and John Edward Gray, with the list of targetted authors increasing as the years went by.
The flow of so-called scientific papers stealing works from earlier authors and illegal renaming species grew steadily over the following years so that by 2021, there had been nearly 100 species and genera of reptiles renamed illegally as seen in the list here.
Snakeman Raymond Hoser, the first and main target of the Wuster gang's act of "name authority" theft took the matter to the ICZN in 2012, after Wuster illegally renamed the genus Spracklandus Hoser, 2009 as Afronaja.
The 2012 date is significant as Hoser pointed out to the ICZN that if they did not act against the Wolfgang Wuster problem then, that it would get worse.
Also in 2012, Wuster's first draft of a document, later rebranded as "Kaiser et al. 2013", was shopped to thousands of other reptile experts (herpetologists) seeking they sign on as "coauthors" in order to give the publication "more weight".
Shopping for coauthors has become a signature tactic by Wuster and the cohort.
In spite of thousands of people being invited to sign on as coauthors, Wuster eventually only managed to get six close friends to join his call to arms to attack and destroy the ICZN.
The ICZN refused to act in 2012, citing the fact that at that stage the Wuster war cry document, later rebranded as Kaiser et al. 2014, had only been circulated by email and not actually published.
However this changed in 2013, when the rambling diatribe was published in hard copy.
The ICZN decided to allow Raymond Hoser to submit a case for consideration in terms of the actions by Wuster.
In the first instance, Wuster falsely alleged that the journal Hoser had been publishing his recent papers in, namely the Australasian Journal of Herpetology (AJH), was not published in hard copies and was therefore not legal in terms of the rules of the ICZN.
Independent inquiries by the ICZN secretariat scuttled Wuster's lies and at that point their claims became ever more outlandish.
Early claims that Hoser's works were unscientific evaporated after a group of molecular biologists confirmed that all of Hoser's discoveries were in fact legitimate.
Kaiser et al. 2013 formalised the Wuster position as one of usurping the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature in favour of Wuster's gang dictating whose names should be used for what species.
Wuster and the gang did with some success even induced people outside of herpetology to similarly engage in taxonomic vandalism!
Taxonomic vandalism is the renaming of species already named and then dishonestly promoting the new and illegal name as the correct one.
It is the lowest form of activity for a scientist or wannabe scientist who deals with the naming of species.
Wuster and the cohort changed their position more often than a criminal lawyer trying to get a guilty man off a murder charge, but in the end nothing could hide what they really stood for.
They simply wanted to steal "name authority" from others and falsely claim discoveries for things they had not discovered.
This became very self-evident in private facebook posts by Wuster and criminal co-conspirators like Mark O'Shea, a small, irrational, erratic, animal abusing, rodent-like man from the Midlands in the UK.
In the end the ICZN decided that Hoser was right in all ways and that his journal and papers had been published in the normal way and were wholly compliant with the rules of the ICZN.
The ICZN confirmed that the Hoser names have priority over the nearly 100 names coined by the Wuster gang.
In line with Hoser's original case submission, the ICZN agreed that it was unusual for them to have to deliberate on a publication that was clearly valid in all ways and to that extent they did not have to invoke their so-called plenary power to rule on anything, as the staus quo was self evident.
The status quo of course was that the Hoser names were valid under the rules of the Code and assuming they identified valid species (which was not in contention) they sould be used in preference to those of the Wuster gang.
The Wuster gang's multiple applications to have the ICZN use their plenary powers to formally suppress and effectively ban Hoser's publications, was almost unanimously rejected by the commission, who also made scathing comments about Wuster's ridulous ambit claims.
Significantly, and over many years, Wuster, O'Shea and others in the cohort, including Scott Thomson and Wulf Schleip, admitted that their attempt to break up the ICZN, destroy the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, or to get the ICZN to vote for their own self-destruction was a long shot.
Taxonomic vandalism, including theft of "name authority' as practiced by the Wuster cohort has already caused species extinction and has enormously negative wildlife conservation consequences as detailed in a series of peer reviewed papers in 2019.
Because Wuster and his cohort have attacked musem databases worldwide with their taxonomic vandalism the ICZN ruling in Case 3601 will have global ramifications in that Museums and others will have to correct their species lists to be in line with the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature.
Numerous scientists have already hailed the ICZN determination as the only logical and sensible ruling available to the ICZN and a great day for wildlife conservation globally.
Raymond Hoser said "Lets hope that Wuster does not make good his repeatedly published threats to seek to destroy the ICZN and the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, if they ruled against him, which is exactly what they did."
Meanwhile the Queensland Museum in Australia has been one of the first to formally commence erazing the illegal Wuster gang names from their records, including making sure that their Reticulated Pythons are properly labelled Broghammerus Hoser, 2004, intead of the later illegally coined Wuster gang name "Malayopython".
Next on the Queensland Museum chopping block is Indotyphlops, which is a coined junior synonym of Maxhoserus Hoser, 2012, that happens to be the world's smallest species of snake.
It is worth noting that Wuster's cohort have put blocks on dozens of Wikipedia hate pages and vandalized other pages to prevent them being corrected in a last ditch attempt to subvert the ruling against them by the ICZN and to try to fool others that their illegally coined names are in fact the correct ones.
The Wolfgang Wuster gang also includes misfits such as a two convicted child sex offenders, a man convicted of stealing a snake from a wildlife display, a wildlife displayer convicted of shooting a potential client, a convicted drug user and trafficker, Jamie Benbow and of course the notorious con man, David John Williams, convicted of wildlife and animal cruelty offences. I should also mention that Wuster, O'Shea and others in the criminal gang have been found in various legal proceedings to have engaged in serial acts of animal abuse and animal cruelty (use of snake TONGS), resulting in deaths of snakes, those findings not being challenged.

Download the ICZN Ruling in favour of Snakeman Raymond Hoser and against Wolfgang Wuster's taxonomic vandalism.

Download the Wuster gang's list of illegally coined names and the correct ICZN names here.

Who exactly are these fake scientists and taxonomic vandals ...
Click here for a list of their names.

Download the full list of papers, scientific names, etc, affected by the 30 April 2021 ICZN Ruling.

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