Hello,
I am attempting to make an entry for this species of algae that only grows on turtle shells. It is called Basicladia chelonia but iNat wont recognize the name. Would appreciate help with this thanks.
César
if it helps anyone who is looking into this:
https://www.gbif.org/species/2644504 accepted species at least for GBIF
@cesarcastillo, welcome to the forum! iNaturalist’s taxonomy is maintained by our site curators, so if you think a taxon should be added to iNaturalist, you should go to the taxon’s parent’s page (eg https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/794699-Basicladia), click on Curation (under the graphs) and then select “Flag for curation”. Write a short note and provide a link to a source for this taxon and our curators will take a look.
Because there is already a method in place for the addition of taxa to iNat (which you may not have known about), I think it’s best to make those request on the website itself rather than here on the forum.
GBIF is not a reliable source for determining whether a name is currently accepted.
The correct epithet for this species seems to be “chelonum”, not “chelonia”, and Algaebase lists it as a synonym of Arnoldiella chelonum. I have created that taxon and gotten it properly grafted in the tree.
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Hey Cesar. For any marine species of any kind whatsoever, the taxonomic website WoRMS is a good place to look in order to check the taxonomy, to see if the name has changed.
Here is the relevant entry for Arnoldiella chelonum, which you will see also lists Basidicladia chelonia as a synonym, which means that if you had searched for WoRMS Basicladia chelonia you would have found the correct up-to-date name:
http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=707904