I’m pretty certain that’s not so; that particular rule was changed in January 2000, as I said.
The Gunnison Sage-Grouse Centrocercus minimus “accidently” received its official scientific name in 1998, when a photo was published on the cover of the textbook Principles of Animal Behavior by Jack Bradbury and Sandra Vehrencamp. The caption to the cover photo mentions the scientific name. Otherwise there is only a fairly brief mention in two pages in the text describing a few plumage and display differences from Greater Sage-Grouse C. urophasianus, plus a couple more photos and graphs. No holotype is designated, and no specific diagnostic characters are cited. There is no indication that the authors intended to describe a new species. The new scientific name is not even mentioned in the text, only in the cover caption. (I have the book in front of me.) As “Bradbury and Vehrencamp” appear as the authors for the species name in the latest update of the American Ornithologist’s Union Checklist (2000), I presume the description was valid at the time.
The actual formal species description, by the people who have been researching this for the past eight years, is slated to appear in the Wilson Bulletin this month. But they will have to stick with Bradbury and Vehrencamp’s name, regardless of what they actually wanted to call it. My guess is that Bradbury and Vehrencamp (or more likely the book editor) made an honest error that they now are very embarassed over. They possibly thought the name had already been published, or perhaps it was scheduled to be published before the book but was rejected and had to be revised.
Prior to January, basically all you had to do was (1) propose a valid scientific name; essentially that meant one that had never been used before; (2) indicate some way that the species could unambiguously be distinguished from its closest relatives; and (3) “publish” the information, which essentially means to make it widely available. (I am simplifying greatly.) This year’s reforms, I believe, require that the author also indicate that (s)he intends to describe a new species, and also designate a type specimen. “Publication” solely on a web site is no longer considered valid.
Unfortunately I am unable to provide a link to the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, because the organization that publishes it does not have it on their website, and in fact they seem to have forced several other organizations to remove it from theirs by threatening copyright infringement.
Because Pouyard published his article in 1999, he would have been able to get away without designating a type specimen. If he tried it now, the name would probably be declared a nomen nudem, that is permanently invalid, and the original researchers would be able to redescribe it under whatever name they chose (but not the one Pouyard had used.)
While I don’t want to speak for Doug, I think he meant that because Pouyard’s description fell within the technical rules for species description as they were in effect at the time, that name must be accepted. Certainly his behavior, if it was as described, fell outside the less formal “rules” of accepted practice, but these are just a professional courtesy. They have no effect on judging whether a name can be accepted or not.