Genus complete: mission accomplished!

That’s an impressive list of monotypic genera. Did you come up with it by memory, or by systematically looking through your observations, or some other way?

Using the ‘Life List’ download option, I filtered the resulting excel sheet for duplicate genera and checked those candidate genera for completeness - I am now quite confident that apart from the six dispecific bird genera mentioned above, there is nothing else for me to add from any other group (especially no arthropods) - with the exception of the plant genus Bellardia - but that taxonomy doesn’t seem to be too stable…

So, currently, seven dispecific genera and one bird genus with three species

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Both - I knew a couple off the top of my head (Bolbometopon, Zanclus, Pandion, etc.), but most are from checking my list of species observed.

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I’m not sure how many genera I’ve completed, but you’re question just made me wonder whether it would even be feasible to observe all species of some of the largest genera like Euphorbia or Astragalus.

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To complete Penstemon (most diverse in North America), one would need to visit 3 countries (or 2 countries plus Alaska might work). In the USA, almost every state from the Pacific to Arkansas has endemic species plus a trip to Florida and North Carolina would cover most eastern species. In Mexico, I think one would visit at least 15 states. Conservatively, the ~280 species would require travel to 40 states and provinces. 5 years by an extra dedicated botanist?

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I would imagine almost every iNatter in Europe has completed the monotypic genus Erithacus, officially Britain’s favorite.

Only Allocyclosa bifurca… but since it only contains this one species, I don’t really think it qualifies for the spirit of this exercise. :rofl:

Wow, Erithacus rubecula sure is cuter than Turdus migratorius. Prettier name too.

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5 years seems possible but probably overly optimistic. Some years are particularly bad and during those years, nothing comes out. Still, it does sound doable. At least the Penstemons are all perennial (as far as I know) which probably limits the years when they don’t emerge at all.

For Euphorbia, it would be far harder. You have a worldwide distribution with endemics or near endemics to all but the most northern countries (e.g., Canada). You also have an abundance of state-level endemics and island endemics. I imagine it would be possible if someone had the money and time to dedicate a good part of their life to traveling around the world and finding the species, but seems unrealistic.

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Or the largest genus of woody dieoceous angiosperms, which is also the only genus in its family.

I would absolutely love to see all the Catocala of the world, but that is probably impossible given a good chunk live in China and in many war-torn areas of S. Asia and the Middle East. There are so many rare and localized species that have never been photographed alive.

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