Flag for Taxon: Lesser Cornstalk Borer Moth (Elasmopalpus lignosellus)
| Flagger | Content Author | Content | Reason | Flag Created | Resolved by | Resolution |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| treichard | susanhewitt | Lesser Cornstalk Borer Moth (Elasmopalpus lignosellus) |
the new spelling is incorrect |
Jan. 2, 2024 03:50:47 +0000 | xpda |
Changed back to Elasmopalpus lignosella |
Comments
@treichard I'll be happy to change it back. I just want to make sure you realize that not many people are using Elasmopalpus lignosella.
Google Scholar lists 852 articles since 2020 that use Elasmopalpus lignosellus, but only 3 with Elasmopalpus lignosella. Since 2014, there were 1,990 using Elasmopalpus lignosellus, but only 6 with Elasmopalpus lignosella. The numbers with regular Google are 57,600 and 627.
I'll reverse the swap in the morning if I haven't heard anything different.
Yep, this is going to be a sticky wicket. Sometime in the last two decades the Lepidopterists and perhaps others started to use the epithet as it was written in the original description instead of having it agree with gender and number of the genus. The most recent checklist (Pohl & Nanz 2023) used this convention and is currently the official checklist of NA Lepidoptera. As a result, I think iNat should use the name found in Pohl & Nanz. As @treichard mentioned, MPG has become the web-face of the "official position" of North American Lepidoptery.
Yes, and the best place to check for the spelling to use is in the original description. Google search result ratios are rather irrelevant, except if they can help lead to the original description article. When I was fixing these -a vs. -us spellings in iNat taxa a few years ago, I always put as direct a link as I could to the original spelling document, such as in https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_changes/93434. The hope was that if someone was suspecting the spelling was incorrect, they could click a link and see immediately the original spelling for themselves.
I also cited the Moth Photographers Group page for North American taxa. The MPG web site often has a direct link to the original descriptions in their species pages, including for this species. So that site can often be the go-to stepping stone to find the original description for a spelling check for the taxa they cover.
I see now the other flag (https://www.inaturalist.org/flags/618190) linking to a new article (https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4450/14/4/354) that uses the -us spelling, even though it should have used the original -a spelling. It didn't treat taxonomy and made no nomenclature changes, so this article doesn't change anything about which spelling to use as primary.
@xpda The correct spelling of this species ends with an -a, lignosella, as noted in my previous taxon swap: https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_changes/93434. Your taxon swap at https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_changes/137145 will need to be reversed.
Note that Butterflies and Moths of North America is not a taxonomic authority and is not a source for taxon changes and spellings. They have many mistakes and outdated names.
Moth Photographers Group is the place to start because they are part of the collaboration that published the new checklist in Nov. 2023 that gives the latest taxonomy that BugGuide and iNaturalist use for Lepidoptera north of Mexico.
See https://mothphotographersgroup.msstate.edu/species.php?phylo=800486 and https://wedgefoundation.org/MONA2.asp.