Thank you @borisb. Let's do this like one eats an elephant: one bite at a time.

 
The paper by Kamiński et al. et al. et al. et al. (2022) was a shocker when I reviewed it, but because I've done that, I am in a position to state that the science is solid. It's a shame that we lose the iconic genus name Psammodes for the "truest" of all toktokkies. Here in my corner of Earth they are ubiquitous, at times abundant, and generally impossible to identify to species.

The abundance of identifications of only one of the many species on iNaturalist is fake and is an artefact that sprouts from our favourite-most-hated insect field guide treating only that single species from among the ~150 described species, albeit under a significantly outdated name (which switches to the correct name in iNat). @rjpretor and I used to wage a campaign to weed out that nonsense, but we publically threw in the towel: we are voices in the wilderness compared to the best-selling field guide.

 
I have now swapped those names that you had kindly prepared [above].

 
The big bugger is that the genus name Psammodes still continues to exist along with Mariazofia. Most every interested body in southern Africa knows the name Psammodes. That is going to be a neverending problem on iNaturalist. I'm still thinking of my boilerplate text: Psammodes in its new sense are elongate beetles, whereas Mariazofia species are more or less globular. That's the best I can think of so far. The alternative is to dive for the ovipositors!

 
Now I am going to finalise the genus Psammodes, which remains with only three valid species:
        ◆ Psammodes longicornis Kirby [added by you ... thanks].
        ◆ Psammodes probes Péringuey.
        ◆ Psammodes sklodowskae Kamiński & Gearner.
 
 
@traianbertau for your interest. Perhaps you want to subscribe to this flag.
 
 

I have been looking at the obs of "Psammodes" over the last days and have not seen a single one that would match the Psammodes sensu novo. They are all the golbular ones.

Perhaps one could solve the taxonomic update by just making a swap from Psammodes to Mariazofia and then create again Psammodes? I don't know the technical options though.

Can you please also add Mariazofia pinguis.

While you are at organizing the Molurina tribe: Can you please add Ocnodes rowleianus (Westwood 1864) to Ocnodes?
It a species that is represented in the iNat observations. The most recent of Kaminski's papers still mention it under that label.

And: Ocnodes scrobicolle to Ocnodes scrobicollis

(I did not check the other Ocnodes re gender)

Thank you @borisb

Meanwhile I have found another Mariazofia for identification. Can you please add "Mariazofia  hottentottus" (Péringuey) as per Kaminski's paper - apparently does not change to "hottentotta", might be treated as a noun in apposition

Moving comments to the flag for discussion, as previously requested.

@beetledude: @bouteloua

With respect, cassi, you clearly don't understand what is going on here. This is a project on which we have been working for two years already. The publications from our Polish-American collaborators appear relentlessly.

There will be no taxonomic split. Please undo all of the above. Most of it has already been done; the rest is being done. > Moreover, your listing is erroneous on the one hand, and incomplete on another.

A taxonomic split would never have worked.

Greetings,
Riaan

@borisb @traianbertau

-

@bouteloua: I am happy to learn. Are you saying that there are no genus rank IDs of Psammodes on iNaturalist that are now in other genera within Molurina?

@bouteloua

if you're not familiar with how taxon splits work

Yes, this is a reality, I admit. I shall give this a few hours of reading and thought before I fire off my mouth again.

@beetledude @borisb

I don't find it confusing. Ocnodes was treated as a feminine noun by Fahraeus.

Fåhraeus does treat Ocnodes clearly as feminine: the second species is Ocnodes concinna - and all the adjectives in the description text come in feminine endings: subovata, nigra, nitida, glabra etc

https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/9913352

But there is also some obscure rule for endings

https://code.iczn.org/formation-and-treatment-of-names/article-30-gender-of-genus-group-names/?frame=1

30.1.4.4. A compound genus-group name ending in the suffix -ites, -oides, -ides, -odes, or -istes is to be treated as masculine unless its author, when establishing the name, stated that it had another gender or treated it as such by combining it with an adjectival species-group name in another gender form.

In this case however, the author treated it feminine!

And Tarsocnodes was probably treated as masculine by Gebien (or not treated re gender) - the publication is not available one, so we can't check it.

Perhaps the re-identification option is doable, but there are many entries.

Are we ready to move Psammodes genus IDs to subtribe? If you don't like the output taxa listed here (on the right side), we can narrow it down... or expand if if I missed any.

https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_changes/113803

Are we ready to move Psammodes genus IDs to subtribe? If you don't like the output taxa listed here (on the right side), we can narrow it down... or expand if if I missed any.

Given that it appears that 99% of our records of Psammodes are in fact Mariazofia I would say NO! That would be wrong and create a huge workload:
496 observations ofPsammodes would become Molurina and then need to be identified as Mariazofia.

Rather do a temporary swap of genus Psammodes to genus Mariazofia - which solves all the IDs.
Then create a new Psammodes and add the three species with no observations to it.

The taxonomy is irrelevant. it is the workload.

Changing 496 observations (probably 1000 identifications) to a tribe (Molurina) when in fact they are all the current Mariazofia is simply insane.
Fix the IDs first, and then fix the taxonomy.

But it will take only 3 minutes to add the genus Psammodes as a synonym to the 5 new genera. And two years for everyone to update the 1000 identifications to Mariazofia

You can even add a fake/empty swap afterwards if you want to be pedantic about the taxonomy. But get the IDs correct without creating a huge ID burden!

So taxonomy:
Make a 1:1 Psammodes to Mariazofia - this solves the IDs
Then do the split (https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_changes/113803) - this solves the taxonomy. (make an new empty genus if the old inactive name cannot be used)
Then move the 3 empty species names incorrectly transferred to Marizofia back to Psammodes and delete the Mariazofia equivalents.

Net effect: one change, one split and 3 corrections
Versus: one split and 496 incorrect identifications that now need to be fixed by sundry other users.

What Tony is saying make sense.

And if I may add: All previously identified Psammodes are not Psammodes sensu nov, they are all Mariazofia or possibly the odd misidentified Ocnodes may be present.

The suggested swap procedure would solve the issue.

And may I suggest that we discuss the vernacular names then later once the tax/tech issue is solved, we can make a new flag then for Molurina for the name issue and invite the main contributors.

It doesn't matter if they are currently maverick (it is both the individual IDer's intention and the collective ID that matters). In fact many are maverick because of improper curation. Did you also want these IDed as Mariazofia?

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/20831817
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/11190824
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/52440783
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/101309373
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/101777069
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/49696265
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/49228495
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/19589121
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/11317679
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/11302492
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/36129895
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/85223406
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/15953220
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/68961764
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/3431020

Now that I've more thoroughly looked at the history of taxon changes, it is not really a question as to whether the genus split happens. But it would be helpful for someone to confirm whether the set of output taxa appears to be relatively comprehensive to document the changes in taxonomy.

@bouteloua :: Are you saying other genera were never carved off Psammodes on iNat?

@beetledude: YES!!!

I think you might be misunderstanding my question. By saying yes, you are confirming that you believe, for example, Toktokkus spp. were not carved off of Psammodes.

As long as the output taxa listed on the split are all within Molurina, the outcome is the same... (Psammodes IDs are transferred to non-disagreeing Molurina IDs). I'd like it to be accurate, but I can just do output taxa Psammodes and Mariazofia if that makes it simpler...

Because the IDs go to Molurina, not Mariazofia (for all of the reasons above).

 
 
@bouteloua

You are right that I have no clue about splits. I have no clue what you want to do or why, and the more you explain, the more you confuse me.

Let me start at the very beginning, a very good place to start:

▶ What do you mean with the phrase "genera were carved off"?
▶ What does the term "to carve off" mean?

I am, however and indeed, still grateful for your assistance.

Thanks and good night. This week was pure hell.

Riaan
 
 

Let me know if I can help.
If you click 'Analyze IDs' on https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_changes/113803 (which displays for curators), you'll seem:

Total IDs of input taxon: 1193
Number of IDs Destination Atlased?
0 Psammodes Not Atlased
0 Chiliarchum Not Atlased
0 Toktokkus Not Atlased
0 Mariazofia Not Atlased
0 Piesomera Not Atlased
0 Argenticrinis Not Atlased
1193 Molurina Outside of all atlases
0 Molurina Overlapping atlases

What this means is that there are 1193 IDs of Psammodes and this split will replace them with coarser IDs of Molurina
If this is ok - then you're done.

If you'd like to replace those IDs with particular output taxa (e.g. Chiliarchum, Toktokkus, etc.) or have some reamain at Psammodes
this can be achieved to the extent that non-overlapping atlases for each output taxa are created

if you want to inactivate of genus Psammodes and move all content to genus Mariazofia
then yes, please do a swap of genus Psammodes -> genus Mariazofia
rather than the split drafted here https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_changes/113803)

If Psammodes is still a valid genus, and you want to reassign some of the IDs of Psammodes to something else, you should do a split with Psammodes as the input and Psammodes and the other taxa as the output. This will replace IDs of Psammodes with the common ancestor or one of the output taxa depending on the existence and configuration of atlases.

If you want to use a taxon change to replace all the IDs of Psammodes with IDs of Mariazofia to avoid having to do this manually outside of any changes to the taxonomy, while I understand the appeal, thats really not what taxon changes should be used for. Taxon changes should be used to address IDs that have become misspecified because of an explicit change in the taxonomy (e.g. a portion of Psammodes carved off as Mariazofia, or Psammodes replaced with Mariazofia) but if Psammodes and Mariazofia have always been valid taxa and there's just some confusion about which is which, this should be addressed with identifications

This is a case of Psammodes being split. But all our observations of Psammodes genus IDs are now Mariazofia.

So it is a case of the classical taxon split giving an undesired result. The workaround solves the problem with only some (3% compared to the alternative) minor issues.

 
 
Thank you for your lead, @loarie.

@traianbertau and I assure you that every single beetle presently identified as Psammodes on iNat is in fact a Mariazofia. You understand the situation very well. Whereas I still haven't grasped the split proposed by @bouteloua, that is immaterial. Your 6-point plan above will work and it will have the effect that both @tonyrebelo and I wish for.

Please go ahead, and kindly enact your magic.

As for users being 'peeved' that "we" are changing their erroneous Psammodes identifications to correct Mariazofia identifications, I can assure you that exactly nobody in the southern African community will be so peevish. There may be a small number of Psammodes identifications made by people from the top left quarter of the world, but we already know how to treat them with extra care and kitty-gloves. We shall manage the diplomatics.

Again I thank you,
Riaan
(beetledude)
 
 

My links above were examples and not comprehensive of all the IDs I found of Psammodes that are not Mariazofia.

These are the 671 observations that contain the 1192 current IDs of Psammodes. So you could go through each of these and find the comprehensive list where someone didn't clearly mean Mariazofia when they added an ID of Psammodes. But I agree with @bouteloua it still seems a bit presumptuous and risks getting into territory of changing people's IDs.

making a split which would role these 1192 IDs back to the common (subtribe) ancestor would be alot safer and more consistent with people's understanding of how iNat handles taxonomy changes (as separate from community contributed Identifications). The same person could still got through the same list of 671 observations and just add IDs of Mariazofia to role those forward where appropriate. That seems like it would be about the same amount of work since both approach requires someone looking at vetting each observation.

But I am still happy to defer to the community. For groups like birds where the taxonomy is very stable and there's a large group of people with a shared understanding of what these taxa mean, I think there are real risks to doing the kind of workarounds being described here in terms of confusing people, and setting bad precedents. But south african beetles is still a group with a relatively small number of people involved and a very vague and unstable taxonomy. So while I'm against the workaround philosophically, it still might be the best practical solution to getting from point A to point B requiring the minimum amount of work. But I'd like everyone involved in this thread to have a chance toy consent (ie not oppose) before doing the workaround, so please make your feelings re: workaround clear

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?reviewed=any&quality_grade=needs_id%2Cresearch&id=27636375,28665293,28665347,38790595,60985483,38191670,38214171,38323458,72347846,38386452,38460349,41514413,38568232,39195518,65336827,39207266,38673282,70297990,65339384,40990662,40958431,40808964,41241408,83153685,55128198,54267646,53875344,55922952,101454686,61681505,100568379,57723472,76610957,57830239,68876863,58057966,59047996,87257403,59299842,59423662,59445276,102853580,65897500,60187764,60747808,100586825,60999724,98882389,60962040,58397917,61288777,19028482,61290531,62871892,62780468,62292993,68332400,62732815,68332320,99359356,63247113,63259623,63326806,63405264,70383313,63891893,63545046,63641947,63646477,105658078,41289793,41109797,40071833,29390824,29440067,30424532,66206914,30673921,87266656,31166132,17121526,31292409,102254395,31839274,32237515,32061658,32888691,102286400,10994723,20176342,32529477,32635857,32700422,32779477,10806374,33182751,33244256,33305990,33306942,33429740

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?reviewed=any&quality_grade=needs_id%2Cresearch&id=33702893,77251070,38027362,34606052,80720682,34683914,35413565,35090439,35172365,35312547,36028425,36038563,36068643,35770127,35816378,35819864,35852438,104583694,36321926,94532441,36346922,36380864,36383131,40098616,36726921,36774643,36798562,36800981,37265049,37275807,37296145,37341344,37394283,37664896,59243093,8467767,99525065,8839363,66733144,8962491,8976414,65817952,9988590,10794706,10780886,10789697,97034605,10588194,10588992,10806321,10808970,10826227,10831553,10838170,10851175,10862797,10881645,10883011,10889667,10895273,10896461,10912398,10918358,10920479,10961399,10962924,10964384,10968794,10977436,10978876,10980632,10983078,11025601,11044065,11058178,11065984,11075352,11081722,11087296,11105518,11110492,11121004,11124289,11155207,11081900,11186258,11199429,11213241,11160887,11218045,11255608,11302467,37220341,41890580,42947736,41951020,41980066,43130209,42298685,103203157

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?reviewed=any&quality_grade=needs_id%2Cresearch&id=43393009,57524949,42580476,42663067,43740372,45579990,104071727,69084743,46715882,48480202,48033588,49231371,95786154,71957003,59769778,61285130,61292319,51912658,62409215,52041110,52258186,54384946,54028079,4973430,37219844,11241743,11114812,13123731,19247830,36998158,98901819,15755579,18903679,4961185,20365630,20365584,1700631,18130730,10832663,13418811,98902097,125325505,16402385,10999663,11102458,16267249,32327366,10820689,110835905,11091469,11227412,18436050,34134916,11304774,18978944,18994336,18994339,19369658,65792230,20176957,20181329,20303666,38876104,11305302,11058531,27572540,69516104,36673775,9693934,42158871,37304734,33755875,65767888,33525281,32799041,37432794,23329664,23594085,99113511,35010898,27290837,64302462,65459587,67416628,64609716,64690692,64023253,110307498,65146790,106937084,67414156,65274275,65882596,66156244,66654569,67242161,64672542,64030914,67237232,67244853

What are these links about please?
I have been through the first page (30) of three of them and ALL are exactly the point: the concept of Psammodes is now Mariazofia. There is no issue here at all: all MUST change.
As I understand it @bouteloua concerns are for observations where the current ID is one of the other new genera (and she has found 15 so far) but there are still residual IDs for Psammodes. For these the "residual" will change from Psammodes to Mariazofia. While this is a valid point, it will not change any community IDs at all, and these IDs are in fact based on the "concept" of Psammodes, which is now "concept" Mariazofia (dozens of species)+Psammodes (3 rare species). Since there are ZERO cases where Psammodes - senso lato - is currently valid as a community ID, this objection is academic:: it is an argument of semantics within a de facto name change - in which the ID changes merely reflect the replacement of one name (Psammodes) with another Mariazofia: which is exactly the issue.

A pity that you feel "misinterpreted" - the only way to resolve this is by dialog, not withdrawal. Clearly if you are being misinterpreted, there is a communication gap that it would have been nice to resolve.

As I see it the situation is clear:
.1. Psammodes old is now Marizofia new. With three exceptions in Psammodes (senso nova) for which there are no cases on iNaturalist. This applies to 450 observations and perhaps 900 IDs (I am not a curator: I cannot get this figure).
.2. So basically what was Psammodes on iNaturalist is now Mariazofia.
.3. There are a few exceptions for other new genera from the Psammodes/Mariazofia concept, but they have been already resolved to community ID on iNaturalist. All known instances of Psammodes that are no longer Mariazofia are already resolved.
.4. There are also a few residual identifications amongst (3 :: observations ID to current genus) that are still Psammodes - but these are the Psammodes/Mariazofia concept - and a brief note on these will save a huge amount of work. At present we know of 15 cases. Almost certainly none of these cases are beetle taxonomists or enthusiasts, otherwise they would have been following the debate and made the changes already. And anyone with feelings on this, would have responded to the changes in ID.

So what has been "willfully misinterpreted" or ignored?

It needs to be pointed out that that because of the way the taxonomic split is being made at
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_changes/113803

This means that the old name Psammodes 334694 becomes the new name Psammodes 334694 -

But this is NOT what the identifiers did - they identified it by a different version of the name.
This is also reflected in the change in common names, where the old Psammodes was Toktok Beetles as per that concept, but the new common name is Elongate Tokkies
The users most certainly did not name if after Psammodes - Elongate Tokkies :: merely the shape of the beetle would have told them that that was an incorrect identification.
So under the current swap, the users are credited with the wrong name (as they are now already, as the old genus is now merely recycled to the new genus, with the new common names), which is then swapped to the subtribe: a double travesty.

I am happy to check for any misidentifications once a swap has been done, but please do something we can not go in circles endlessly :)

taken further here: https://www.inaturalist.org/posts/76919-psammodes
(join the project here if you are interested: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/tenebrionidae-darkling-beetles-of-southern-africa?tab=stats

Thank you @beetledude

It looks great!

This flag can now be resolved.