Errors on the Fauna of the Galapagos Islands booklets

An error in philately generally refers to a defect in the production of a postage stamp: wrong color, perforation failure or lack of it, folds in the paper, etc. Such errors are relatively rare and therefore such stamps with mistakes are costly. However, there is another type of error that is not so rare or expensive. It is the design error. There are errors in spelling, geography, politics, history, etc.

On March 18, 2011, Correos del Ecuador put into circulation an issue of two booklets, of 16 stamps in each, with images of wildlife and landscapes of the Galapagos Islands.

A close examination reveals several text errors in both the common and scientific names of the species represented.

1. The first obvious mistake is the lack of consistency in the naming of the animals. Some names start with capitals; others are entirely in lower case:

• Piquero Enmascarado - Piquero de patas azules
• Tortuga Marina - Iguana terrestre

2. In the name of the penguin, it should be shown Galapagos Penguin, the scientific name is wrong. Sphenisciformes is a plural form and should be used for the order which includes all species of penguins. The correct name for this species is Spheniscus mendiculus.

3. In the scientific name of Blue-footed booby appears as Sula Nebouxi. According to the standard convention used for naming the different species of organisms, called binomial nomenclature, the scientific name assigned to a species is formed by two names, genus and specific name. The first is always be written with the initial capital and the second in lowercase. In this case, the error is obvious.

4. In addition to the error mentioned above, there is another. The correct name of Sula nebouxii has been omitted from the final two i

The only fish that is depicted in this issue has several errors. The most obvious is the omission of initial h, to give the name of Alcón del corral narigudo, when the correct way to write the name of this fish coral reef is Halcón del coral narigudo. The second mistake is to put an extra letter word r in word coral rendered meaningless name of the fish.

6. In the second booklet, the scientific name for sea lion shows two errors. The correct name is Zalophus wollebaeki instead of Zaluphus wolleb aeki.

7. The same mistakes in the name are present in the adjacent stamp.

8. Two stamps feature a unique rock formation in Darwin Island, known as Arco de Darwin (Darwin's Arch), but omitting the grammatical rule of using capital letters in proper nouns "arco de Darwin" was written.

The best recommendation to the Ecuadorian Postal Service is for the nature-themed stamp designs must be reviewed by experts in their field.