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The pattern shown in Fig. xx likely reflects a combination of processes. If most of the taxa being added to GenBank represent species that have already been described, then the rate at which taxa can be identified (either by taxonomists or by researchers using their outputs, such as keys) is being outstripped by the pace of sequencing. Alternatively, dark taxa may represent unknown species, but we lack taxonomists capable of recognising the taxa as new (and formally describing them). If taxonomic capacity is a limiting factor then we would expect a gradual decline in percentage of named taxa, which is the pattern from 1992 to 2009. The growth of dark taxa might also reflect changing practices of molecular workers, for example in DNA barcoding where large numbers of specimens are sequenced and deposited into GenBank labelled with specimen codes rather than taxonomic names. Indeed, the dramatic increase in the numbers of dark taxa in 2010 is mostly due to sequences from the Barcode of Life Data Systems (BOLD) project.  [do we know how many of these dark taxa are due to BOLD sequences]  [can we soften this by pointing out value of geotagging http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24052287#cm24052287_1489 10.1126/science.341.6152.1341-a ]