Trimerotropis sp. aff. gracilis...

Names like this definitely shouldn’t be added. Corresponding observations should be set to the most refined described taxon and then set to “as good as can be” and optionally marked with an observation field.

I've drafted a taxon swap here. I'll let one of the people familiar with grasshopper taxonomy commit it/change the output to the Trimerotropis instead of specifically T. gracilis if that ends up seeming more appropriate.

I also just saw that @jimmylegs tried tagging me in this thread, but it was sent in June/July when I was "living off the grid," so I must've missed this notification when I returned to the cyberworld.

@arman_ Let me clarify my previous comment. I'm not advocating for the addition of undescribed taxon for iNat (otherwise I'd be adding new taxa for every new Steiroxys I find), and for the same reasons you described. But this is keeping in mind, all of these undescribed species were already added to iNat, have observations under them, and all of these species are listed in BugGuide.

These flags, and there are still several, on undescribed Orthopterans or BugGuide conflictions were flagged by @loarie five years ago. And since nothing has been done about them, that's what led me to the impression we were going to let these ones slide.

Well, many taxa are thoroughly established unofficially, so the fact literature hasn't described them yet isn't a good indicator that the taxa are poor (e.g. rather due to lack of funding or interest), but for the sake of consistency on the site I agree with that point.

@birdwhisperer I don't know how I feel about relying on BugGuide as an authority; there's a big sense of elitism on the site but it has plenty of taxonomical mistakes, IDs with poor judgement, etc. itself. Obviously it also gets plenty of things right and is a great resource, but keep in mind that BugGuide's taxonomy system isn't the same as iNats; they use a ton of informal page assignments for IDs, such as "Genus sp.1 or sp.2"

Hi all,

There are some good points made here for both sides of this situation. However, I will rarely be one to side with the bureaucratic side of an argument as apposed to a logical common sense side.

There is no doubt about this being a distinct species. In fact it is much closer to T. sparsa, T. cyaneipennis, and T. leucophaea in many ways than it is to T. gracilis. Also, occasionally at it's northeastern periphery (and perhaps elsewhere) it occurs in sympatry with T. gracilis. Data is lacking on the cytology of true T. gracilis (published data is for the unnamed species), so it's true relations are unclear so far (though there may be unpublished data now). T. gracilis may actually prove to be a species of Conozoa, while the other "A" species belongs to the "section B" of Trimerotripis (which is not really Trimerotropis, but either a distinct genus or part of Circotettix). The two species favor somewhat different habitats, they behave differently, and they produce different sounds. The lettered designations are a way of maintaining distinctions until formal nomenclature is established (a place-holder if you will).

Agreed - "T. gracilis A" is perhaps not the best way of designating the species, but this is how it has already been done, and how it is being labelled for now. There is no published name available for it yet. Since it has been included within or even reversed with T. gracilis by some authors, that is the name it has been associated with. The "A" was simply away of splitting it out so it could be easily segregated in the least disruptive way. In no way is this formal nomenclature.

To me, nomenclatural inflexibility is a major flaw with iNaturalist. The disallowing of unpublished species, means that a huge section of living things are either incorrectly lumped in with something similar (often not all that similar), or they just don't get recognized at all, and remain lost among a morass of unidentified observations. Either way it causes a lot of confusion and difficulty in locating specific observations. Giving a label (though by all means yes, it should be clear that it's not a published species name - not a "real" name), is the only practical way of sorting these into a unique category, given the way iNaturalist is constructed, and the rules.

This species has not been described yet for assorted reasons, but largely it is out of issues involving professional courtesy. Projects of taxonomic study sometimes occur in spurts, and sometimes they get delayed. Funding, politics, and personal lives can all be factors. In the real world, things often do not happen quickly. The time factor has no connection with the actual distinctness of the taxon. This species has been recognized by experts for several decades, but publication has been delayed for one reason or another (there are actually several such unnamed "Trimerotropis" species). It is not very nice to swoop in and scoop somebody else on naming things (it has happened to me several times, and it was definitely not appreciated). Also, Trimerotropis is a composite of more than one genus, and the the sorting out of these unites, and documentation has proceeded slowly, and is also a factor.

Anyway, I personally don't care to worrying over whether something has a legally published name yet or not. If there is a way to designate something that is clearly distinct, so that people can learn about it, be aware of it, and recognize it, that seems more important. Awareness also promotes the accumulation of new knowledge. When this is lumped in with T. gracilis, it is totally artificial; the distinction is totally lost in the observations here; it is in reality misinformation as well as misidentification; and as @arman_ stated, it becomes a major headache to sort through and disentangle the newly misidentified and confused mass of lumped observations again later. There are taxa here that have been "swapped" together and apart, and rearranged in various ways so many times that it is a total disaster. Luckily this one isn't so bad yet.

In this case however, resorting will be easier than most such situations, because the two taxa occupy almost entirely exclusive distributions, so only in the rather narrow zone of overlap will be a serious problem to disentangle them again.

I do fully understand the reasoning behind not allowing such names. It could become a serious problem if a flood of such names were created without being somehow vetted and supported by good arguments and data. It could potentially become chaos. I doubt this would happen though; but it could.

If these two remain lumped together, there should be a statement to that affect on the main page for the taxon, and it should clearly outline that there are two entities included and how they differ. As it stands, when a name is lumped into another, there is no simple way to tell which observations were affected, nor that it was even done.

@davidferguson Thanks for your comprehensive comments. When Otte 1984 included the undescribed species in T. gracilis I don't know whether he was deliberately taking a broad view of the species or whether he as following McNeil without knowing that McNeil had accidentally or mistakenly lumped the two species. Either way, that was the last review of the species or the genus that could be cited and that's what's reflected on OSF. My discomfort with the placeholder names is around the idea of curators more or less making up their own taxonomy when they disagree with the source. In this example we all agree that there's a problem with the source but that won't always be the case. On inat, half of the records of T. gracilis that existed before this merge actually represented the undescribed species anyway, so having the placeholder name wasn't really increasing the clarity or accuracy of the data. Neither species seems to be observed at high rates, so if Trimerotropis is someday revised, or if the new species is described, the number of records here that will need review should be manageable.

@ birdwhisperer Yes, you are correct, your observation is the unnamed species and not T. sparsa.