Frequent incorrect observations due to specific common names!

[bnormark]

Yes, I imagine this is a ubiquitous problem, especially for insects that can’t really be identified to species based on a habitus photo. The first name that gets applied to a member of the group has a huge replication advantage and tends to snowball. I’ve seen what I think are examples of this in my group, armored scale insects (Hemiptera: Diaspididae). Repairing it requires systematically changing a lot of names. But mostly I don’t try to repair them because, what if some people actually know what they are doing and have some sort of inside information about what species it is? I think a few identifiers really do have such information, but most don’t. To be very specific, I have repaired the likely cases of Chionaspis heterophyllae being identified as Chionaspis pinifoliae, but I am leaving alone the many cases of Chrysomphalus aonidium, even though I suspect several of them may be other species of Chrysomphalus.