Flag for Taxon: Domestic Mallard (Variety Anas platyrhynchos domesticus)
| Flagger | Content Author | Content | Reason | Flag Created | Resolved by | Resolution |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| fogartyf | Domestic Mallard (Variety Anas platyrhynchos domesticus) |
May I suggest changing the common name of this taxon in English to 'Domestic Mallard'? I think Domestic Duck is confusing because at least one other duck species is also domesticated and many others are kept in captivity. |
Feb. 28, 2018 13:58:51 +0000 | bobby23 |
see comments |
Comments
Irrespective of how many ducks are domesticated, the name Domestic Duck applies to this taxon. Changing it for whatsoever reason will result in confusion and the incorrect identification of the species.
Common names are not for people to decide by logic or argument: they are the names in use and being used by ordinary people. What gives anyone the right to tell them that they are wrong in the name they have used for years?
Perhaps mark as resolved: this has not moved for a year and is clearly not a priority or a popular suggestion.
For what it's worth I agree with changing to "Domestic Mallard" and that that would reduce confusion and misidentification rather than increase it.
One example that I'm aware of: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/36392491
This is also an outlier, in that bird species have "official" common names from the Clement's checklist. This domestic variety was just assigned a name by whoever created the taxon - I don't think either "Domestic Mallard" or "Domestic Duck" could be characterized as "more correct", but as upupa-epops' example demonstrates the current use of the latter has prompted numerous examples of confusion. We change poorly chosen iNat names for subspecies all the time - I've been involved in that for multiple passerine species, and in some cases it's completely alleviated the misidentification issues.
I set "Domestic Mallard" as the default English common name based on mounting support.
However, I feel like the disagreement on the observation shared by @upupa-epops is more about how the taxa are treated, not from confusion over common names. It looks like some users would prefer having one wastebasket taxon entry for all domestic ducks.
I guess this is a matter of opinion, but I would argue that changing the default name to "Domestic Mallard" would make it harder for people not familiar with taxonomy to accurately ID their observations. Besides, the vast majority of domesticated ducks descend from mallards anyways.