Hi everyone,

A friendly reminder that the curator guide says "try to add names at the taxonomic level where they describe all members of that taxon and only members of that taxon. If a species has no common name in usage, please don't make one up."

Very few leafminers have established common names, and there are a lot of examples of newly made-up ones on iNaturalist. Often they take the form of "[host plant] leafminer." Since there is hardly any plant with just one species of leafminer on it, this practice leads to many absurdly wrong IDs (and frankly the same problem exists with most of the "official" common names that do exist for leafminers). I'm starting to delete these bogus names as I come across them, now that I've figured out how to do it. Please don't introduce any new ones.

Thanks,

Charley

Hi everyone,

Nearly a year after creating it, there are now 5583 observations in the North American Leafminers umbrella project (https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/north-american-leafminers), and I've just finished reviewing all of them. A couple of notes:

• iNat currently has 167 observations for the oak shothole leafminer (Japanagromyza viridula), most of which are in the project--but the vast majority just show the "shot holes" rather than leaf mines. There are supposedly other things that can cause similar holes in oak leaves, so I am only attributing these to J. viridula if there are associated leaf mines. I would prefer not to have photos added to the leafminer project if all they show is the holes. I just quickly scanned through all the J. viridula observations and found just seven that show actual leaf mines:
  https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/5236321
  https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/14453364
  https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/14453365
  https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/14453367
  https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/14453370
  https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/25991431
  https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/27329971

• The "boxwood leafminer" (Monarthropalpus flavus) is actually a gallmaker rather than a leafminer, despite its common name. It therefore does not belong in the leafminer project, but feel free to put photos of it in the gall project (https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/galls-of-north-america).

• I've now created a few "species complex" nodes for mines made by two or more closely related species that can't be distinguished without rearing adults:
  Ectoedemia populella group for the "green island" mines on aspen
  Phytomyza ilicis group works for all fly mines on Ilex spp. (I only just created this one tonight, and there are a number of observations currently just identified as "Phytomyza" that belong here)
  Phytomyza minuscula group includes the two species that form linear mines on columbine
  
  I'll create other species complex nodes as needed, now that I've figured out how to do it. Unfortunately the Liriomyza species that form linear mines on white snakeroot aren't necessarily closely related, so I haven't made a special place for all those observations.

I think that's it for now. Keep up the good work!

Charley

Hi everybody!

Thanks for adding your photos of leaf mines to this project. Just a few hours in and there are already over 600 observations! I wanted to mention a few things in addition to what is in the "About" section:

• If your photos are already part of a regional leafminer project, there is no need to add them here, since I've created an umbrella project to keep track of them all: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/north-american-leafminers ...If you are aware of others (or decide to start one), just let me know and I'll add them on.
• There is lots left to learn about leafminers, so if you encounter mines that can't be identified, I encourage you to try rearing them to adults. My rearing methods are outlined here: https://bugtracks.wordpress.com/rearing/
• For a complete accounting of what leafminers are known from every plant in North America, including mysteries that need further investigation, see my Leafminers of North America e-book: http://charleyeiseman.com/leafminers/

There are well over 2000 species out there, and the umbrella project currently registers 119, so let's see how many more you can find!

Charley