iNaturalist Amphibian Working Group's Journal

I just finished updating iNaturalist Amphibian Taxonomy to Amphibian Species of the World aside from the following 11 'explicit deviations' that we're currently making:

1. Eurycea quadridigitata (sensu lato) rather than Eurycea quadridigitata (sensu stricto), Eurycea hillisi, Eurycea paludicola, Eurycea sphagnicola
2. Aneides flavipunctatus (sensu lato) rather than Aneides iecanus, Aneides niger, & Aneides flavipunctatus (sensu stricto)
3. Desmognathus marmoratus (sensu lato) rather than Desmognathus aureatus, Desmognathus melanius, & Desmognathus marmoratus (sensu stricto)
4. Desmognathus auriculatus (sensu lato) rather than Desmognathus auriculatus (sensu stricto) & Desmognathus valentinei
5. Pseudotriton montanus (sensu lato) rather than Pseudotriton diastictus & Pseudotriton montanus (sensu stricto)
6. Trachycephalus typhonius (sensu lato) rather than Trachycephalus typhonius (sensu stricto), Trachycephalus macrotis, Trachycephalus quadrangulum, & Trachycephalus vermiculatus
7. Hyla (sensu lato) rather than Hyla (sensu stricto) and Dryophytes (e.g. H. andersonii, H. arboricola, H. arenicolor, H. avivoca, H. bocourti, H. chrysoscelis, H. cinerea, H. euphorbiacea, H. eximia, H. femoralis, H. gratiosa, H. immaculata H. japonica, H. plicata, H. squirella, H. versicolor, H. walkeri, & H. wrightorum rather than D. andersonii etc...)

8. Pseudacris (sensu lato) rather than Pseudacris (sensu stricto) and Hyliola (e.g. P. cadaverina, P. hypochondriaca, P. regilla, & P. sierra rather than H. cadaverina etc...)
   9.Eurycea spelaea (sensu lato) rather than Eurycea spelaea (sensu stricto), Eurycea nerea, & Eurycea braggi

9. Lissotriton vulgaris (sensu lato) rather than Lissotriton graecus & Lissotriton vulgaris (sensu stricto)
10. Smilisca baudinii (sensu lato) rather than Smilisca manisorum & Smilisca baudinii (sensu stricto)

As before, please flag any taxon that you find problematic (either because we're not making an exception and you think we should be, or because we are making an exception and you think we shouldn't be). Currently, the only unresolved amphibian flag relates to (1) our Eurycea quadridigitata exception. I've written a blog post going into that exception in more detail here. I also plan to do blog posts about each of the other 10 exceptions we're making.

Also, thanks for bearing with me on process for discussing/updating amphibian taxonomy. We were previously using this thread on my personal journal. But now that we have Collection Projects, it seems like it might be more appropriate to continue that thread in a project. I've created a Amphibian Taxonomic Working Group project where we can make posts to discuss and relay updates related to Amphibian taxonomy. Please follow the project if you want to receive these posts.

Thanks!

During IUCN's 2004 Global Amphibian Assessment, they treated the Eurycea quadridigitata complex as a complex of two species: Eurycea quadridigitata (sensu 2004) and Eurycea chamberlaini which had been recently split off. But they didn't include a range for E. chamberlaini and their range for E. quadridigitata was from before E. chamberlaini was split off (ie E. quadridigitata sensu pre-2004):

iNat has followed suit with just these two species in Eurycea quadridigitata complex. I hand drew an approximate range for E. chamberlaini, but E. quadridigitata is still using the original (E. quadridigitata sensu pre-2004) IUCN range.

A recent 2017 paper by Wray et al. further splits up the complex by carving off 3 new species from E. quadridigitata (sensu 2004): E. hillisi, E. paludicola, & E. sphagnicola

Amphibian Species of the World has added these new species.

I've taken a crack at adapting this figure into new ranges for E. hillisi, E. paludicola, & E. sphagnicola and another crack at E. chamberlaini and E. quadridigitata (sensu 2017):

Currently, iNat is explicitly deviating from Amphibian Species of the World by treating the Eurycea quadridigitata complex as just 2 species: E. chamberlaini and E. quadridigitata (sensu 2004).

Would folks be ok with rather going with Amphibian Species of the World in this case? Steps would be:
1) Create taxa for E. hillisi, E. paludicola, E. sphagnicola & E. quadridigitata (sensu 2017) with the above ranges
2) update the existing E. chamberlaini range with the one above
3) split E. quadridigitata (sensu 2004) into E. hillisi, E. paludicola, E. sphagnicola & E. quadridigitata (sensu 2017)

This has been already proposed in a flag here. Thoughts?