Shane's World Right Catfishology Right List of original l-numbers

Article © Julian Dignall, uploaded May 16, 2014.

The widely used L-number system has its critics and criticisms. It's my personal view that it adds more than it detracts and it has certainly proved popular! However, one of its major criticisms was, as the original photographs were akin to flesh and blood holotypes, that the system amounted to a form of digital rights management (DRM). One has to remember the system started in 1988, so I am sure this was not intentional, but as many original images were exclusive to the publishers of German magazine DATZ, this limited the use of the system as an open and international common reference at the dawn of the internet age.

In fairness to DATZ, over the years they've produced bilingual magazine booklets and made the articles generally available but not in the one place, and not in the English language. Why should they? After all, they are a German magazine and they exist to sell magazines! However, the L-number system is widely used internationally. This list below is a complete set of links to all DATZ original articles and the all-important original pictures therein.

You can buy DATZ back issues here.

At present, the articles available only go up to L464 (July 2012). Details of newer L-numbers can be found here.

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