Flag for Taxon: Northern Giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis)
| Flagger | Content Author | Content | Reason | Flag Created | Resolved by | Resolution |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| wildlife1607 | Northern Giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis) |
the giraffe taxon split has been accepted by the ASM Mammal Diversity Database |
Jul. 24, 2023 05:49:55 +0000 | rjq |
split committed |
Comments
Can you make out how the present iNat scheme of subspecies (below) flows into the new proposal of 4 species accepted by ASM Mammal Diversity Database?
Giraffa camelopardalis ssp. angolensis Namibian Giraffe
Giraffa camelopardalis ssp. antiquorum Kordofan Giraffe
Giraffa camelopardalis ssp. camelopardalis Nubian Giraffe
Giraffa camelopardalis ssp. giraffa Southern African Giraffe
Giraffa camelopardalis ssp. peralta West African Giraffe
Giraffa camelopardalis ssp. reticulata Reticulated Giraffe
Giraffa camelopardalis ssp. rothschildi Rothschild's Giraffe
Giraffa camelopardalis ssp. thornicrofti Thornicroft's Giraffe
Giraffa camelopardalis ssp. tippelskirchi Maasai Giraffe
From the opening paragraph in the report linked above:
northern giraffe (G. camelopardalis)
Kordofan (G. c. antiquorum)
Nubian (G. c. camelopardalis)
West African giraffe (G. c. peralta)
Rothschild's Giraffe (G. c. rothschildi) [not in opening paragraph]
reticulated giraffe (G. reticulata)
Masai giraffe sensu lato (G. tippelskirchi)
Masai giraffe sensu stricto (G. t. tippelskirchi)
Luangwa (or Thornicroft’s) giraffe (G. t. thornicrofti)
southern giraffe (G. giraffa)
Angolan (G. g. angolensis)
South African giraffe (G. g. giraffa)
Oof! The opening paragraph? Indeed. And reference is made to two previous studies that suggest four species.
@lwnrngr Do you support effecting the taxon split in iNat.?
Anyone else we should consult before doing so?
I didn't take note of the publication date until now, the paper linked above has been out for a while. It's the same paper linked to in this flag: https://www.inaturalist.org/flags/531079
Essentially what has changed since the previous flags is that the ASM Mammal Diversity Database has accepted the split, as @wildlife1607 pointed out.
This has been around for a long time. Time to accept it and move on ....
(original flag here: https://www.inaturalist.org/flags/130198)
Any updates on this? The ASM Database still has them split, I see no reason why we should be waiting on this even longer.
Ok, I'm busy committing the changes.
Is it Maasai Giraffe or Masai Giraffe?
I see "Maasai" mostly refers to the people and "Masia" is the more commonly use spelling for geographic referencing.
Also, is it South African Giraffe or Southern African Giraffe?
Coimbra et al. 2021 used "South African" and "Masai".
this was marked as an explicit deviation from MDD https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/42157/taxonomy_details
Indeed. Now that it is no longer a deviation, I'm trying to figure out how to correct the relationship.
My point was that one should normally check with whoever marked it as a deviation, as there may be a reason for this.
Is the G. camelopardalis s.l. taxon (https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/42157-Giraffa-camelopardalis) going to be split as part of these updates? I ask because about 2,000 Giraffa observations (about 20% of all observations) are currently stuck at genus level now that subspecies swaps conflict with the original species. For example: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/36298017 (easy to fix my own but appears to be representative of a widespread issue). If this spilt is still a work in progress, disregard! Thanks.
There does need to be a split
Thank you for pointing this out.
I don't know how to effect a split of the G. camelopardalis s.l. taxon to help fix the issue. I'm hoping there's a clever way to do it.
I welcome your advice.
Surely this whole discussion is purely historical. This was implemented some time ago, and this discussion is historical.
The split has already been done. It is simply a matter of going through the observations and making the identifications.
Genus Giraffa (resolve issues: )
Giraffa camelopardalis Giraffe 4,442 (resolve issues: )
Giraffa camelopardalis ssp. antiquorum Kordofan Giraffe 103
Giraffa camelopardalis ssp. camelopardalis Nubian Giraffe 4
Giraffa camelopardalis ssp. peralta West African Giraffe 564
Giraffa camelopardalis ssp. rothschildi Rothschild's Giraffe 548
Giraffa giraffa Southern Giraffe 4,726 (resolve issues: )
Giraffa giraffa ssp. angolensis Angolan Giraffe 865
Giraffa giraffa ssp. giraffa Southern African Giraffe 3,836
Giraffa reticulata Reticulated Giraffe 533
Giraffa tippelskirchi East African Giraffe 2,174 ( resolve issues: )
Giraffa tippelskirchi ssp. thornicrofti Thornicroft's Giraffe 55
Giraffa tippelskirchi ssp. tippelskirchi Maasai Giraffe 2,001
The split has not been done - the subspecies have been raised to the new species, but Giraffa camelopardalis has not yet been split. There are too many genus level IDs to make adding new IDs an option (68 pages worth in your useful link above @tonyrebelo ) - and a split is straightforward as the species are allopatric. I'll draft a split later today.
One question for the atlases - is there any evidence of East African Giraffe being introduced into Southern Africa? I recall some discussion of animals that looked like this.
No. That was the case with the Black Rhino.
As far as I am aware, there are both and hybrids of Gg giraffa and angolensis in Kalahari National park, but elsewhere it is all Ggg.
if it is valid to do a geographical based (atlas) split for Giraffa camelopardalis to species, why not Giraffa (genus) to species as well?
As a matter of philosophical interest!!
If people identified it as Giraffa camelopardalis under the old system, then under the new system they merely identified it as Giraffa (to generic level) at the time. Is it valid then to infer that they meant the current species, when in fact they were only identifying to generic level? Surely this is not a valid assumption?
The correct would be to change all the identifications of Giraffa camelopardalis to Giraffa (genus), because that is effectively all that the identification was - only worth an ID to generic level!
Tony, that makes sense to me. At the time of the identification, more than two days ago.
However, I'm keen to see how @rjq goes about implementing the split of G. camelopardalis. I don't know how to do it.
You create an atlas for each of the new taxa, and then you swap from the old to the new. In discrete areas they will go to the respective new taxa, outside these areas and where there is overlap it goes up to the taxon rank above.
Here: https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/curator+guide#changes - esp. the heading: Splits:
and here: https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/atlases
Thanks. I suppose I should consult the curator guide more often.
I'm not going to mess with it now, since @rjq has kindly offered.
I have no idea about the technical details that happen on the side of curators, but from the point of view of a normal user, this has been hugely confusing. Wouldn't it have been better to first split the genus and only then to shuffle around the subspecies? Maybe I am in a large minority, but I am personally not a big fan of subspecies and I typically ID my observations to species only. Now I have noted that some of my observations - which had a subspecies ID from someone - have been moved to new genera, but then I went to check the original genus and see that it still has a lot of observations in it overlapping with the ranges where these new genera popped up - and its range map also still covers the entire area. Even more confusing is that no entry about the split has appeared in the news feed so if it weren't for someone putting an ID to one of my observations after the fact, I would have never known that a large amount of my observations requires attention ...
If you have not been informed, then it is because you have not made any subspecies IDs.
When the split is made from Giraffa camelopardalis to the new species, then you will be informed.
At this stage you are only affected by other identifiers adding subspecies: otherwise nothing on your observations or IDs would have changed. That a large number of your observations require attention is still in the future: you will be notified that your IDs have automatically changed when it is updated, and if you dont make subspecies IDs, then you will not have to make any updates:: iNat should manage the changes seamlessly.
@rjq - please also fix the range maps for the new species.
please also see if the GBIF data can be tweaked?
(at this stage these are valid for the genus, and not the current species or subspecies, but are displayed as Giraffa camelopardalis ).
split drafted, comments on atlases welcome https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_changes/134854
Thank you, @rjq
The atlasing seems right to me. Quite a job!
Ranges updated
That looks great - thanks!
Still not quite sure how to handle the subspecies in Caprivi/n Botswana/w Zimbabwe ...
Thanks @lwnrngr. @tonyrebelo I don't think all observations in Southern Africa need to be (or can be) identified to subspecies? Philosophically, I think your point above would be correct if all observers/identifiers always identified to subspecies level - but many observers aren't interested in subspecies, so many giraffe observation stayed at species level for this reason. Also, in Southern Africa there are observations which can't be identified to subspecies, but can be identified as G. giraffa.
I am not so sure it is as bad as you are painting it. We have (currently, before the split is done, for southern Africa, verifiable):
3,974 observations for Giraffa giraffa giraffa
885 observations for Giraffa giraffa angolensis
55 observations only identified to species (i.e. Giraffa giraffa)
and:
148 observations identified to Giraffa camelopardalis
1,031 currently only identified to genus Giraffa.
Of these latter two, when the split is made and all the Giraffa camelopardalis identifications become Giraffa giraffa, most will be assigned to a subspecies as they do have subspecies IDs already (but in conflict with G.c.).
This is the problem area where there is conflict in the DNA and morphology, and many people are just opting out:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?lat=-18.66&lng=24.13&place_id=any&radius=300&subview=map&taxon_id=42156&verifiable=any
Basically 860 observations (with 451 as Gg [278 as Ggg, 117 as Gga, and 56 as Gg -species], 177 as Gc and 232 as Giraffa [genus]).
Otherwise, I envisage all observations will be at subspecies level (although we need to add the hybrid to the dictionary for Kalahari Gemsbok Park, where some introductions of Ggg were added to introductions of Gga "to improve genetic diversity" - but how to tell the three taxa apart is an issue!).
Split committed so resolving flag.
Excellent. Thank you.
There are quite a few names in Southern African languages that will need to be transferred to G. giraffa
Oh: does the swap not do so automatically?
English names are sorted. Yes, there are lot of African languages that will need revising throughout the ranges and species. A pity that the Language lexicons dont link to atlases as well.
It would for a swap I think, but not for a split, and the names were applied to G. camelopardalis and not to the subspecies
It will take a curator to delete the common names from G. camelopardalis - so sorry: I cannot help here.
Done:
Current status for southern Africa, verifiable 6,099 observations
:
4,756 observations for Giraffa giraffa giraffa
1,073 observations for Giraffa giraffa angolensis
267 observations only identified to species (i.e. Giraffa giraffa)
and:
1 observations identified to Giraffa camelopardalis (https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/191866772)
2 currently only identified to genus Giraffa. (https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/9064035 & https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/126461696)
Another study came out supporting the 4 species taxon split for giraffes:
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdf/S0960-9822(21)00546-7.pdf
The ASM Mammal Diversity Database has accepted the taxon split into 4 recognized species in the genus Giraffa
https://www.mammaldiversity.org/