Flag for Taxon: Stick Insects (Order Phasmida)
| Flagger | Content Author | Content | Reason | Flag Created | Resolved by | Resolution |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| bouteloua | Stick Insects (Order Phasmida) |
bringing in line with Phasmida Species File |
Jul. 21, 2018 16:55:12 +0000 | loarie |
see comments |
Comments
I will tackle some now, it's gonna rain here any minute so no point in going out, besides my ankle is so sore, I can't likely walk more than about 200 meters as it is.
I think we've dealt with them between us--looks like everything's sorted into tribes in Verophasmatodea, except things that are incertae sedis in the file.
awesome work cassi - let me know how I can help
I moved all of the remaining "hanging" genera pages into the appropriate tribe as per the Phasmida file.
I did not:
validate to see if the list of tribes was complete - if there was an automated load of them, it missed at least a couple as there were 2 or 3 tribes that I had to add in the process
check to see if any genus level members were missing.
nor did I really tackle any attempt to add species level records. Please keep us in the loop about plans to add these via an automated process, otherwise, I will keep this on my active list and when time permits, gradually tackle some.
I have a progress document listing the accepted PSF species, which please feel free to edit: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ac5bXpqONs0T0La-iTnPZes6ri5w1HXp4sq9uUW74HY/edit#gid=1646804875, check columns L&M for the status/notes.
Here's the Phasmid species in iNat that are not in http://phasmida.speciesfile.org:
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/744116
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/744155
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/742500
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/744177
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/745305
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/744077
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/743579
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/745290
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/534760
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/744037
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/705605
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/743998
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/744004
e.g. https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/744116-Paracalynda-obtusecornuta is considered a synonym of Bostra obtusecornuta
http://phasmida.speciesfile.org/Common/basic/Taxa.aspx?TaxonNameID=1202253
Ok, I took care of those, except 'cuestaridge' which is under current discussion.
These seem to be the remaining 488 species in PSF but not in iNat. Let me know if you want help adding them
https://www.dropbox.com/s/1v3vnlcbn2l7ypm/PSF_missing.txt?dl=0
That would be great to get the help. There are a few issues, e.g. there are two Bostra animal genera (the other is in Lepidoptera), and some of these should be placed within subgenera.
Ok let me know what you'd like me to do.
Also these seem to be the taxa that are grafted to different parents than in PSH (e.g. the 'need to be placed within subgenera' issues you mentioned). Let me know if you'd like help moving any
name inat_parent psh_parent
Diapheromera covilleae Diapheromera Rhabdoceratites
Diapheromera beckeri Diapheromera Rhabdoceratites
Neoclides Diapheromeridae Necrosciini
Galactea Diapheromeridae Necrosciini
Diapheromera Diapheromera Diapheromerini
Calvisia Calvisia Necrosciini
Calvisia aeruginosa Calvisia Conocalvisia
Calvisia biguttata Calvisia Viridocalvisia
Calvisia grossegranosa Calvisia Nigracalvisia
Calvisia flavoguttata Calvisia Viridocalvisia
Calvisia ferruginea Calvisia Nigracalvisia
Calvisia hilaris Calvisia Conocalvisia
Calvisia leopoldi Calvisia Conocalvisia
Calvisia hemus Calvisia Conocalvisia
Calvisia fuscoalata Calvisia Conocalvisia
Calvisia omissa Calvisia Nigracalvisia
Calvisia medora Calvisia Spinocalvisia
Calvisia nigroaxillaris Calvisia Nigracalvisia
Calvisia medorina Calvisia Spinocalvisia
Calvisia octolineata Calvisia Conocalvisia
Calvisia hippolyte Calvisia Conocalvisia
Calvisia punctulata Calvisia Viridocalvisia
Calvisia timida Calvisia Conocalvisia
Calvisia spurcata Calvisia Conocalvisia
Calvisia semihilaris Calvisia Conocalvisia
Calvisia tessellata Calvisia Conocalvisia
Calvisia rufescens Calvisia Nigracalvisia
Calvisia conspersa Calvisia Punctatocalvisia
Calvisia coerulescens Calvisia Conocalvisia
Calvisia albosignata Calvisia Nigracalvisia
Calvisia clarissima Calvisia Viridocalvisia
Calvisia virbius Calvisia Conocalvisia
Leosthenes Phasmatidae Xeroderini
Erringtonia Phasmatidae Clitumnini
Greenia Phasmatidae Lonchodini
Paragongylopus Paragongylopus Gratidiini
Parapachymorpha Clitumnini Medaurini
Olcyphides Pseudophasmatidae Stratocleini
Metriophasma myrsilus Metriophasma Acanthometriotes
Prexaspes Prexaspes Prexaspini
Prexaspes janus Prexaspes Elasia
Prexaspes ambiguus Prexaspes Elasia
Prexaspes brevipennis Prexaspes Elasia
Prexaspes pholcus Prexaspes Elasia
Prexaspes viridipes Prexaspes Elasia
Prexaspes vittata Prexaspes Elasia
Ceroys brunneri Ceroys Miroceroys
Ceroys saevissimus Ceroys Miroceroys
Ceroys heymonsi Ceroys Miroceroys
Ceroys redtenbacheri Ceroys Miroceroys
Phyllium bioculatum Phyllium Pulchriphyllium
Phyllium abdulfatahi Phyllium Pulchriphyllium
Phyllium giganteum Phyllium Pulchriphyllium
Phyllium Phyllium Phylliini
Phyllium brevipenne Phyllium Pulchriphyllium
Phyllium chitoniscoides Phyllium Pulchriphyllium
Phyllium frondosum Phyllium Pulchriphyllium
Phyllium groesseri Phyllium Pulchriphyllium
Phyllium exsectum Phyllium Pulchriphyllium
Phyllium keyicum Phyllium Pulchriphyllium
Phyllium schultzei Phyllium Pulchriphyllium
Phyllium sinense Phyllium Pulchriphyllium
Phyllium suzukii Phyllium Pulchriphyllium
Phyllium asekiense Phyllium Pulchriphyllium
Kerabistus marginatus Kerabistus Rhadinobistus
Kerabistus klantei Kerabistus Rhadinobistus
Kerabistus hollowayi Kerabistus Rhadinobistus
Some of those were subgenera, e.g.
Calvisia Calvisia Necrosciini
Calvisia (subgenus) was appropriately grafted to Calvisia (genus) which itself is already grafted to Necrosciini (tribe)
but I fixed all the others that you listed.
Are you able to add the missing ones in one swoop on the back end or are you offering help to manually add missing spp? :)
If one swoop, we would need to specify the inat_parent taxon_id right?
e.g. Calvisia acutegranulosa would need to be specified to be grafted to Calvisia (741605, subgenus) rather than Calvisia (244836, genus), and same issue with the Bostra (phasmid vs. lep)?
thanks!
I can do this in one swoop over the weekend if you'd like (I'm traveling at the moment). I'll be careful with the homonym issue. To be clear, you want me to (1) add the remaining missing species, (2) move any species grafted differently than in PSM?
1 please!
I already moved the species grafted differently than PSF in your list 3 comments up, though there may be others that you didn't list (related again to the subgenus/genus homonym issue).
ok cool - nice work on all this!
ok- I think everything is lined up with PSF (aside from Timema 'cuestaridge'). What are next steps? Do you want to make the order a 'complete taxon' ?
If so, who should be taxon curators, and can someone make a project that can be added to https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/inaturalist-taxonomic-working-groups ?
I definitely know nothing about this group and whether labeling it a complete taxon would be appropriate. I locked the three suborders but maybe you'd like to lock Phasmida too. For other groups, you created a graph and tagged in top IDers to see if anyone was interested. Maybe that's a good next step?
ok I locked the order. I think a journal post for broader discussion would be a good next step. I'd recommend putting it on a project rather than your personal journal but up to you
I don't know how to make that fancy graph, but see:
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/inaturalist-stick-and-leaf-insects-working-group
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/inaturalist-stick-and-leaf-insects-working-group/journal/17991
@ulm13 @pablo_valero & @brandonwoo iNat is using http://phasmida.speciesfile.org as the taxonomic reference for Phasmids. Is this reference close enough to what you want to see here on iNaturalist (and are the species file people responsive enough) to stick with that or would you prefer we remove the taxon framework and be more free form with the Phasmid taxonomy?
I am honestly not very up to date with phasmid taxonomy and only know the US fauna - but Phasmida species file should be a good source to use here on iNat.
Hi @loarie , yes, we can fully trust Phasmida Species File. It is the most serious and updated platform about phasmids systematics, actually, it is the most used and cited by scientific papers, also official platforms about biodiversity (for example, GBIF) use PSF as their source for this order of insects.
The main head behind the platform is Paul Brock, a good colleague of mine and one of the leading experts in Phasmatodea. The way how they work is mainly by staying in touch with us, the taxonomists working on this order, and also by checking all new publications related to Phasmatodea systematics from scientific journals.
I guess Tony already told you that I published with some colleagues some important papers during the latest months, with many important changes in the systematics of neotropical Phasmatodea (20 new species, 2 new genera, 56 new combinations, 26 new synonyms, etc.) and would be nice if all these updates were included on iNaturalist. All these changes are already on Phasmida Species File.
For example, I already saw some photos of a few of those new species and I was not able to enter the ID because the taxa is still not included in the iNat system. Today I also saw a user identifying an insect as Planudes, when Isagoras is now the valid name for the genus; I had to explain to him.
In case I can help here to keep everything updated, let me know and I will try my best with the time I have ;)
OK great- it makes it so much easier when there's an external reference to follow.
@pablo_valero I made you a curator. I also added all the missing taxa in Phasmida Species Files (PSF). The remaining issue (and if you could help this would be great) is to deal with the 174 active iNat Phasmid taxa not in PSF https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_frameworks/7/relationship_unknown
For each of these, click 'New Taxon Change', add the proper output taxon (which should already be added/active), and then commit the taxon change which will inactivate the input taxon and move all content to the output taxon.
If any look weird or controversial or suggest errors in PSF, click 'Flag for curation' and we can have a discussion
There's only one open flag at the moment and it relates to unpublished species https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/47198/taxonomy_details
Most of these taxa not in PSF don't have any observations so swapping them away should be relatively easy and non-disruptive. The issue is sorting out what the destination (output taxon should be)
@ulm13 curious to hear your thoughts too as the other top Phasmid IDer
Thanks for the help pablo_valero!
@loarie , done! The species that I have not modified are all described by Thanasinchayakul, 2006 and declared nomen nudum because he did not designate types. So, by not complying with the ICZN rules, these species are not officially recognized (as long as they do not designate types).
Ah! and I have not modified the Timema 'cuesta ridge'. As far as I know, it is mentioned in a couple of paper as Timema sp. "Cuesta Ridge", but this only means that the authors were not able to identify the species. So, could be an undescribed species or not, but in any case, without description and HT, this species does not exist officially.
wow - thanks so much for all the hard work. Great to get Phasmid taxonomy up to speed!
Hi @loarie , there are some species not included in the system (most of them recently described) and would be nice to have iNat up to date. I have no idea how to include those new taxa. Should I ask you or someone else to do it, or is there a way to do it by myself? Thanks!
Hi @pablo_valero - you can add them! More info here:
https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/curator+guide#adding for adding new species that are in Phasmida Species File but not yet on iNaturalist
and here https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/taxon_frameworks for learning about taxon frameworks
yes - as bouteloua said, if you add any that aren't yet in Phasmida SF please add a 'not external' taxon framework relationship (like these) with a note that we want to keep it around even though its not in PSF.
Here's the 22 Phasmid species https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_frameworks/7/relationship_unknown that aren't in PSF where we also don't have a taxon framework relationship indicating whats up with them (ie are we keeping them around intentionally) - if you can clear up any of those aswell that would be awesome
Most of them were nomina nuda with zero IDs, so I inactivated them. Here are the remaining flags on phasmids: https://www.inaturalist.org/flags?flaggable_type=Taxon&taxon_id=47198
Thanks bouteloua - I also ran a sync with PhasmidSpeciesFiles to make sure the taxon_framework was up to date (which included adding a few new species and tfrs and also destroying so no longer relevant tfrs). Now there's just 6 relationship unknowns and all are flagged https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_frameworks/7/relationship_unknown
Also just for fun - I love seeing how localized 2 of the 3 suborders are geographically for this order
great! thanks to both of you ;)
In the case of adding species, I will only do it if they are in PSF. I know the administrators and I know they update very fast.
cool - definitely makes it easy if we don't have to worry about deviating from PSF. Everything should be up to date with PSF except for these 3 species https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_frameworks/7/relationship_unknown
With Timema "Cuesta Ridge" is easy, this species just does not exist. In case it is really a different species than the remaining known Timema species, this name is not valid until a proper description and types designation is published in a scientific paper/book.
Concerning all these species (including Asceles artabrotrys and Ramulus harrisonia):
Asceles artabotrys Thanasinchayakul, 2006
Asceles dipterocarpus Thanasinchayakul, 2006
Baculum chengmaii Thanasinchayakul, 2006
Baculum harrisonia Thanasinchayakul, 2006
Baculum rachaburii Thanasinchayakul, 2006
Baculum siamensis Thanasinchayakul, 2006
Baculum vitex Thanasinchayakul, 2006
Baculum ziziphus Thanasinchayakul, 2006
Carausius siamensis Thanasinchayakul, 2006
Carausius thailandi Thanasinchayakul, 2006
Datames kasetsartii Thanasinchayakul, 2006
Gratidia asystasia Thanasinchayakul, 2006
Medaura lagerstroemia Thanasinchayakul, 2006
Paramyronides atalanitia Thanasinchayakul, 2006
Paramyronides bougainvillea Thanasinchayakul, 2006
Paramyronides psidium Thanasinchayakul, 2006
Parapachymorpha commelina Thanasinchayakul, 2006
Phyllium rayongii Thanasinchayakul, 2006
Sipyloidea aphanamixis Thanasinchayakul, 2006
The problem is that Thanasinchayakul did very poor descriptions (btw, in Thai...) and did not include any drawing or picture of the insects, plus he did not even designate types. Thus, this publication was stated as invalid by ICZN commissioner Doug Yanega 2019 because fails to meet Article 16.4 of the ICZN, hence all new taxa are nomen nudum.
Basically, with such bad descriptions, no pictures and no types to use as a reference, it is just impossible to be sure that the insect you found is one of Thanasinchayakul's species.
The problem I see is that if we keep those species as "valid" on iNat, the confusion will come sooner or later. At some point someone else may describe the species correctly, most likely under a different name and then we would have to remove all these Thanasinchayakul's species anyway (they can't even be considered valid synonyms). This situation may come in years (or never!) and I do not think it will be good to "allow" people to be wrong for that long...
First, this will make people think that these species are valid and will dare to identify records under those names (although they cannot be sure whether or not it is said species). And second, it can be dangerous for inexperienced researchers who frequently visit iNat and are not aware of this kind of complicated situations.
So, if there is only place for officially valid species on iNat, I propose to eliminate all of them.
What do you think?
hmm - http://phasmida.speciesfile.org/ did some pretty major restructuring to the base of the phasmid tree
Basically Agathemeridae which was in its own suborder is now nested within Superfamily Pseudophasmatoidea
They've renamed the expanded Verophasmatodea Euphasmatodea
And they've done away with Infraorders Anareolatae and Areolatae
Here's the relevant parts of what we have now:
Order Phasmida
..Suborder Agathemerodea
....Family Agathemeridae
..Suborder Timematodea
..Suborder Verophasmatodea
....Infraorder Anareolatae
......Family Diapheromeridae
......Family Lonchodidae
......Family Phasmatidae
....Infraorder Areolatae
......Superfamily Aschiphasmatoidea
......Superfamily Bacilloidea
......Superfamily Phyllioidea
......Superfamily Pseudophasmatoidea
And what they have:
Order Phasmida
..Suborder Euphasmatodea
....Superfamily Aschiphasmatoidea
....Superfamily Bacilloidea
....Superfamily Phyllioidea
....Superfamily Pseudophasmatoidea
......Family Agathemeridae
....Family Diapheromeridae
....Family Lonchodidae
....Family Phasmatidae
@pablo_valero et al., Should we follow PSF here?
Well, tricky situation here...those changes were proposed by Cliquennois 2020, and the problem is that they are not yet supported by molecular data. On another hand, the different papers on molecular data have slightly different results, so...let's say that there is no total consensus when it comes to higher classification in order Phasmida.
If it's easy to update our system to match PSF's, I would do it. If not, I would propose to leave it as it is (for now), since it does not affect taxa below the superfamily and I would not be surprised if changes are made again with the next phylogenetic paper. I think that users of iNat, in general, do not care about these kinds of issues and that the important thing is that the taxa from family to species are correct.
What do you think?
Dear colleagues,
Every time I try to add some species etc, I always doubt how to do it (it usually takes a long time between one and the other and I forget) and then I have to spend too much time trying to find out, as I don't find the system very intuitive (maybe is a matter of lack of technical knowledge). In the end, fearing touching something that I shouldn't, many times I decide not to do anything.
On the other hand, I would like to be of further assistance by updating the iNat taxonomy periodically.
So, I wonder if someone could create a tutorial (maybe a short video recording the screen would be the easiest?), Explaining step by step how to:
Automatically compare the iNat database with that of the Phasmida Species File, to show the taxa that do not match (e.g. the ones which are in PSF but not on iNat).
Add species.
Modify the taxonomic position of a species (for example if it has been transferred to another genus).
That way I could check relatively frequently and update iNaturalist based on Phasmida Species File, without fear of doing something I shouldn't.
Would that be possible? Thanks and best wishes, Pablo
pablo_valero I'd be happy to take a shot at this. It seems like it would be useful to iNat curators more generally too
@loarie thank you very much! Very kind of you ;)
OK I haven't made any progress on the tutorial but I did update the Phasmid taxon framework against the external source PhasmidSpeciesFiles and made a deviation for this disruptive change at the base of the tree
So these are the 15 taxa in iNat that aren't in PSF or otherwise accounted for in deviations
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_frameworks/7/relationship_unknown
a huge help would be to help sort these out by:
1) opening flags to discuss whats going on
2) create deviations to account for them if we want to keep them
3) or swap them into some other taxon
Nice, thanks, Scott!
I don't manage to do the changes by myself, but I will try to solve the questions here. Just in case it is urgent and you want to fix them by yourself asap:
1) Agrostia sexmaculatus -> The correct name is Agrostia sexmaculata.
2) Asceles artabotrys -> this one is nomen nudum. I already talked about this some time ago. In my opinion, I would just remove it as it was declared as was stated as invalid by ICZN commissioner Doug Yanega 2019 because fails to meet Article 16.4 of the ICZN.
3) Cnipsomorpha wenxuani -> It should be transferred to the new genus Megacnipsomorpha Ho, 2021. Correct name: Megacnipsomorpha wenxuani.
4) Malacomorpha cancellata -> It should be transferred to Tithonophasma Zompro, 2004. Correct name: Tithonophasma cancellatum.
5) Olcyphides hopii -> This one is a synonym of Paraphasma laterale (Fabricius, 1775).
6) Parapachymorpha daoyingi -> It should be transferred to Spinoparapachymorpha Ho, 2021. Correct name: Spinoparapachymorpha daoyingi.
7) Parapachymorpha jinpingensis -> It should be transferred to Spinoparapachymorpha Ho, 2021. Correct name: Spinoparapachymorpha jinpingensis.
8) Parapachymorpha sinica -> It should be transferred to Spinoparapachymorpha Ho, 2021. Correct name: Spinoparapachymorpha sinica.
9) Parapachymorpha tetracantha -> It should be transferred to Spinoparapachymorpha Ho, 2021. Correct name: Spinoparapachymorpha tetracantha.
10) Parapachymorpha xishuangbannaensis -> It should be transferred to Spinoparapachymorpha Ho, 2021. Correct name: Spinoparapachymorpha xishuangbannaensis.
11) Paraphasma cognatum -> It should be transferred to Ecuadoriphasma Chiquetto-Machado & Cancello, 2021. Correct name: Ecuadoriphasma cognatum.
12) Paraphasma fasciatum -> this one is nomen dubium. The identity of this species can only be clarified if the type is found, so it is another case where it is just impossible to ID something as this species. But the species is not officially declared invalid by the ICZN, for now.
13) Paraphasma lateralis -> The correct name is Paraphasma lateral.
14) Ramulus harrisonia -> Same case as in Asceles artabotrys.
15) Timema 'cuestaridge' -> I already talked about this before. This taxon does not exist and should be removed. This is an unidentified Timema sp. from a place named "cuestaridge" by the authors of the paper where it is mentioned, but no one ever described the species.
Best wishes,
Pablo
Fantastic thanks! I made taxon changes following all your suggestions. The 3 remaining unaccounted for taxa are all flagged and I chimed in on each to hope to get buy in for resolving them https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_frameworks/7/relationship_unknown
nice to have this branch so well curated! thanks all
Happy to hear that ;)
Thanks Scott!
Bank S, Bradler S (2022) A second view on the evolution of flight in stick and leaf insects (Phasmatodea). BMC Ecology and Evolution 22: 62. https://doi.org/10/gqkrzt
I've been working on bringing iNat's taxonomy in line with Phasmida Species File, with tasks such as:
-creating taxon swaps to remove junior synonyms
-adding new taxa
-changing parent taxa
-marking taxa as "locked" once all their species are added so that additional species cannot be added automatically by external name providers such as EOL
To begin this, I requested an export from Phasmida Species File (PSF), exported a list of taxa in Phasmida on iNat using the API (which side note I'm not sure if that export was fully complete), and compared the two.
Progress:
Suborder Agathemerodea [complete, locked]
Suborder Timematodea [complete*, locked]
Suborder Verophasmatodea [in progress]
I'm hoping perhaps if I format the spreadsheet nicely, e.g. with parent taxon IDs, that @loarie might be able to do a mass import of the missing species? But before we do that, I think it would be a good idea to get all the genera sorted correctly into their tribes**. And so, I'm tagging a few people who might possibly be interested in helping with the sorting process for genera in Verophasmatodea, which is just:
-navigate to genus taxon page
-edit
-change parent taxon, usually from family to tribe, per Phasmida Species File
-save
(As I have been clicking "search external name providers" a few times since I did that initial comparison, we'll need to compare the two lists again to see what other "extra" species may have been added before various taxa have been locked down.)
Let me know if I'm missing something or if you have any thoughts. :)
*The only remaining "extra" taxon on iNat after I compared the 2 lists is this provisional undescribed species taxon, " Timema 'cuestaridge' ". What to do with? https://www.inaturalist.org/flags/258248
**There is a weird indexing issue that if a species is first grafted to a genus, and then the genus is moved into the tribe, sometimes the species does not show up as falling within that tribe and is still classified directly under the family.
@nanofishology @treichard @choess @bobby23