I’e been curious about the parasitoid wasps who help out in the garden with brassica-feeding caterpillars. I’ve seen a reference to a parasitoid of Evergestis rimosalis called Cotesia orobenae. But it doesn’t have an entry either here or at bugguide. The publications referencing Cotesia orobenae are pretty recent. My grasp of taxonomy is minimal at best, but I thought this might be a synonym? A brief web search got me nowhere.
I’m probably missing something obvious, but getting this puzzle solved is worth the embarrassment!
I don’t know about synonymy, but you’re correct that C. orobenae isn’t currently in iNat’s taxonomy. A quick search with Google Scholar turned up several articles on this parasitoid dating from between 1995 and 2019. For example:
English Wikipedia lists C. orobenae, but has no article on it. Dutch Wikipedia does though: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotesia_orobenae . It was named something else by Forbes in 1883. No species listed in iNat has the species name orobenae, and everything that comes up searching for orobena is a lep; apparently the host that was called Orobena in 1883 is now called Ponometia.
Sounds like you are working under the assumption that iNat’s taxonomy is complete and thorough for all groups of animals and plants. That simply isn’t the case, nor can it be. The original sources used to populate the taxonomy were undoubtedly incomplete (I don’t know what they all were), and curators and taxonomists have been working for years on iNat to update and supplement those original lists.
This reminds me of a recent discussion here on the forum. Taxonomy can be like BBQ in the Southern US — no one agrees on which one is best, everyone judges you no matter which choice you make, and many people choose to avoid the fight entirely.
Ah, not at all. I just figured that since Evergestis rimosalis is of economic importance (in that it’s a crop pest), its parasitoids would get a lot of attention, and would have ended up in either iNat or bugguide at some point. A good bit of entomology research seems to be driven by agricultural necessity. My brassicas are covered in parasitoid cocoons every year, including Cotesia glomerata, which has a couple thousand observations in iNat. So when I couldn’t find C. orobenae, I figured I must be missing something!
In any case, I’ll get my photos posted and I’ll see what kind of nibbles I get. Thanks to all for your help!
I just figured that since Evergestis rimosalis is of economic importance (in that it’s a crop pest), its parasitoids would get a lot of attention, and would have ended up in either iNat or bugguide at some point. A good bit of entomology research seems to be driven by agricultural necessity. My brassicas are covered in parasitoid cocoons every year, including Cotesia glomerata, which has a couple thousand observations in iNat. So when I couldn’t find C. orobenae, I figured I must be missing something!