Here is a problem we need to address on iNaturalist. Look at taxa 564384 which is Anas × Mareca hybrids in ducks. All eight hybrids listed under this taxon has the genus Mareca is uncapitalized. Example being the Mallard × Gadwall (aka Brewer’s Duck) and it’s scientific name is on iNaturalist is Anas platyrhynchos × mareca strepera. The capitalization of the “M” in Mareca tells the observer that it is a hybrid between two genera. Without it, one can easily mistake the Gadwall’s scientific name as a subspecies, so an observer might think the Gadwall’s name is Anas mareca ssp. strepera. And apparently this problem exists with much more taxon then this because apparently curators have been stripped from correcting that. This needs to be changed, especially if it’s iNaturalist’s goal to be scientifically accurate.
Thanks for posting this. Just wanted to note that I edited the title to clarify that it’s the way iNat is coded that automatically removes most capitalization from scientific names, rather than some sort of privilege for curators that was previously there and taken away.
And a note that this has previously been brought up on the old Google Group (2016) and emails to staff, e.g. by users @jon_sullivan and @pjd1.
Same issue for mallard x muscovy, which shows as Anas platyrhynchos × cairina moschata
Thanks @bouteloua. Yes, this auto-capitalization problem has been in iNaturalist for several years now, and it’s annoying. iNat developers are aware of this.
It would be good to get this fixed. It’s been a low priority for a long time. It would be helpful if this forum could bump it up the “to do” list.
I can’t vote, but would also like to see this fixed. @tiwane @kueda can an interim fix be to “sentence case” after the hybridisation symbol if it is in two or more parts? ie A b x c d would have the two names after the x case-changed to A b x C d ? If the case-changed name is stored internally, then it would be an easy parse, but if it is handled dynamically every time it is displayed, then that might prove more difficult?
In cases of A b x A d, however, the formula currently being promoted in the Curator Guide is A b x d. So one would need to lower case a single word after the x, or sentence case multiple words after the x. Still seems pretty straightforward to me…
yes, if you are already sentence-casing the whole, then those single part ones would solve themselves :)
Made an issue for this.
I’m not sure the tone you’re adding to your comment but it is necessary change if we believe in scientific accuracy.
He just means “issue” as in a “github issue”: https://github.com/inaturalist/inaturalist/issues/2387 (which usually means they are moving forward with the change or at least exploring feasibility)
Ok, thank you for the clarification.
OK, this has been implemented (eg https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/564408-Anas-platyrhynchos-×-Mareca-strepera), but you will have to edit the taxon and the taxon name for it to update.
Reopening. There is a bug preventing the update of all hybrid taxa, we’ll probably get to it next week.
There is a potential fix for this on our Gorilla test server, which can be found at gorilla.inaturalist.org. You will need to enter a username and password to access it when prompted:
username: preview
password: 313phant!
Hybrid names should be capitalized correctly there if you want to take a look.
@tiwane there’s a taxon on the regular iNaturalist site not present on the gorilla version whose name is not rendered properly: https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/922463-Felis-catus-×-Lybica-cafra
In this case, both parent taxa share the same genus (Felis). the second and third epithet in one of the parents (F. lybica cafra) denotes a subspecies, not a second species of a different genus, so lybica would ideally remain lowercase.
EDIT: since this is an outlier, I think a fair compromise would simply be to swap it with Felis catus × lybica.