Flag for Taxon: Condylostylus patibulatus
| Flagger | Content Author | Content | Reason | Flag Created | Resolved by | Resolution |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| treegrow | Condylostylus patibulatus |
lots of misidentification due to iNat CV suggestions |
Jul. 4, 2020 21:45:29 +0000 | zdanko |
Currently being supervised. |
Comments
If I see this type of fly again I will try to get multiple pics
Thanks for the nice synopsis. I don't think I can get great photos from several angles of a live specimen.
@treegrow I am guilty -- thank you for the very helpful guidance!
Guilty as well. I strapped a loupe onto my cell phone to try and get more details but I guess that was still not adequate. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.
@treegrow Thanks for this detailed supplemental text for the flag, I stumbled upon your comment when IDing observations in Ecuador and subsequently decided to make a clean-up world tour for this taxon. So, Asia and South America are clear again, and Middle America as well, except the surroundings of Mexico city (one RG obs needs one more disagreement). Within the US I don't dare to make further IDs, as I am not sure where the distribution border is
Thanks, I was able to knock back the last RG observation from Mexico. We'll see how long it takes for the map to explode all over the world again.
I saw that Condylostylus sipho is also suggested by the CV. Am I correct that those obserations can all be pushed back because species from that group are virtually indistinguishable, or are there some helpful characters to allow an ID or regions in NA where only one species occurs?
Condylostylus sipho group males can be ID'd to species from clear photographs (ideally from multiple angles) that show the bristles on the legs and the color of the front coxae. The females are indistinguishable.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/58993520
Thank you for this, learning all the time. I think a safe bet even beyond these flies is that if the species isn't 100% clear... no shame in simply selecting a genus.
Hey all, just wanted to give some feedback: When not only disagreeing with a species ID, but explaining the reason, or just by adding the link to the flag here as a comment I am getting a lot of positive feedback and I also believe the learning effect is increased. How great would it be to have this kind of guide implemented in the taxa pages of iNat, instead of having to use comments on flags. Let's see what future updates will bring. So long, I'd recommend to link to this conversation here as often as possible. I am also planning to write some journal post about some tricky/AI-favourite species (which then would be great to have them implemented on the taxon page...)
I have created a bunch of these flags for different species. I think they help somewhat in stemming the tide of misidentifications, because conscientious iNatters heed the advice in their future IDs. But I also see quite a few people who keep misidentifying the same taxon over and over again after having been given the link to the flag multiple times. In these cases, making the information easier to find probably wouldn't make a difference.
I've gone through several hundred observations, and there is less than one thousand Needs ID obs left. All of them are in the Northeast, so it should be pretty simple to clean them up.
Went on to flag C. longicornis for similar reasons. As I don't have much experince with this genus (apart from knowing how C. patibulatus should NOT look like), I would be happy to see some comments from you over here:
https://www.inaturalist.org/flags/542065
tagging @edanko as well
Good idea.
(Not sure why you tagged Even, he doesn't do Dolichopodidae)
He does know about all flies, or maybe wants to know more ;-)
🤷
(I am his sibling, but whatever)
I've identified all observations that were at C. patibulatus, and currently, there are no misidentifications left. I'll be supervising the genus in the future so there's not really any need to leave this flag open.
For anyone who is linked to this flag: please refer to my guide to the Sciapodinae of the Eastern US and Canada, and let me know if any questions come up: https://sites.google.com/view/flyguide
This is really helpful, and I'm just discovering it because many of my observations of this genus are old. Even though they had been corrected they must sink to the bottom of my iNat feed so quickly that I don't see the new ID and/or flag. Thanks again!
Condylostylus patibulatus is one of many (>30) Condylostylus species endemic to North America. Most iNat C. patibulatus records are misidentifications, because the iNat computer vision suggests this species for anything that looks similar to a Condylostylus, and many people accept these suggestions blindly. In general, you need good close-ups from multiple angles to confidently ID Condylostylus to species. Cell phone pictures rarely have enough detail to support an ID past genus.
C. patibulatus is known to occur in the Eastern US & Southeast Canada. Any specimens west of the Rockies and outside of the US/Canada are probably misidentifications. C. patibulatus has entirely pitch black legs and u-shaped black marks on the wings. Wing markings can be subtle and sometimes they are even entirely absent, but usually the wing veins are at least strongly clouded. Specimens with yellow or brown on any part of the legs are definitely misidentifications. Note that brown legs often look black in poorly lit pictures, so you really need good pictures to properly assess the leg color.
Also, not every Condylostylus with black legs and marked wings is necessarily a C. patibulatus. Word on the street has it that patibulatus is the only black-legged Condylostylus species with marked wings in the northeastern US and Canada. But in the south there are other Condylostylus species with these characteristics, e.g., C. occidentalis, coloradensis, and melampus.