One of my self-assigned curatorial duties is hunting down common names for taxa on iNaturalist. Per the policies specified on the Curator Guide, I do not create common names. However, overtime I have done a very poor job at retaining the sources where I get these common names. When other curators and users come across a name that they haven’t encountered before and cannot relocate easily, they often assumed I made it myself, misapplied it, etc. This is not the case, but it is my own fault for not keeping track of where the names came from. In attempt to retrace approximately three years of contributions to the site, I have compiled the following list of references I have regularly used for common names. It may serve as a helpful reference for those who are trying to locate common names for taxa they are focusing on, as well as serve as a reference sheet in the event that one is challenged on the validity of the name they applied.
References are listed alphabetically by the surname of their lead author. Hyperlinks lead to previews of the texts or directly to the specified site, depending on the type of source it is. The language of the common names provided are at the end of the references in brackets. If none are specified, then a wide assortment of languages are supported. If one feels that there is a better way to intuitively present this information, let me know! If there are sources you use that aren’t included in this list, feel free to add them.
Eukaryotic Life (Eukaryota) 
-
IUCN. (2020). The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2019-3. [English, French, Spanish]
-
Vrandečić D and Krötzsch M. (2014). Wikidata: a free collaborative knowledgebase . Communications of the ACM , 57(10). https://doi.org/10.1145/2629489 1
-
Note : Wikidata is a collaborative depository of information, not an authority on that information. The scope of Wikidata means not all facetes are moderated well. Not all names on Wikidata are attributed to external resources and there have been issues with Wikidata contributors fabricating or pushing names that people do not actually use. It is a helpful tool, especially for non-English vernaculars, but one is discouraged from adopting names listed there blindly.
-
Plants (Plantae) 
-
Danin A and Fragman-Sapir O. (2020). צמחיית ישראל ברשת (Flora of Israel Online). [English, Hebrew]
-
Grandtner MM. (2005). Elsevier’s Dictionary of Trees, Volume 1: North America: Latin, English, French, Spanish, and Other Languages. 1st ed. Academic Press: Cambridge. ISBN 0444517847. Print. [English, French, Spanish]
-
Grandtner MM and Chevrette J. (2013). Elsevier’s Dictionary of Trees, Volume 2: South America: Nomenclature, Taxonomy and Ecology. 1st ed. Academic Press: Cambridge. ISBN 0123969549. Print. [English, French, Portuguese, Spanish]
-
SANBI. (2020). PlantZAfrica. South African National Biodiversity Institute. Available at: http://pza.sanbi.org/. [Afrikaans, English]
Animals (Animalia) 
-
Horton T, Kroh A, Ahyong S, et al. (2020). World Register of Marine Species. doi:10.14284/170
-
James BM and Johnson DM. (2014). KwaNobamba Royal Residence Biodiversity Report. South African Heritage Resource Agency. [English]
-
Jiang L. (2013). 蓝色动物学 (Blueanimalbio). Version 5.1. [Chinese (simplified)]
-
Palomares MLD and Pauly D (eds). (2019). SeaLifeBase. World Wide Web electronic publication. Version 12/2019.
Arthropods (Athropoda) 
-
Bartlett T and VanDyk J (eds). (2020). BugGuide.Net. Iowa State University, Department of Entomology. [English]
-
Note: BugGuide is a well-curated and moderated resource, but iNat curators have mistaken a BugGuide user’s description of an insect they photographed on BugGuide as a credible common name (such as here with Acanthocephala terminalis described as “Leaf-footed Bug”) when it is not. This is part of the description provided by the user which is often either erroneous or a name that applies to an entire family of insects. Names internally recognized by BugGuide are accessed on the title of a species taxon page, presented as “Species [Scientific name] - [English Common Name]”. If additional names are recognized, they are sorted under the “Other Common Names” subsection under the “Info” tab. For an example of how this is displayed, see Diabrotica undecimpunctata. Not all invertebrates have common names and not all species on BugGuide have common names, but this does not mean that they do not exist elsewhere. BugGuide is not an authority on what species have vernacular names.
-
-
Brock PD, Büscher T and Baker E. (2019). Phasmida Species File Online. Version 5.0/5.0. [English]
-
ESA Governing Board. (2020). Common Names of Insects Database. Entomological Society of America. Version 2/4/2020. [English]
-
Hogue CL. (1993). Latin American Insects and Entomology. UC Press: Berkeley. ISBN 0520078497. Print. [English, Portuguese, Spanish]
-
Otte D, Spearman L and Stiewe MBD. (2019). Mantodea Species File Online. Version 5.0/5.0. [English]
-
Picker M. (2012). Field Guide to Insects of South Africa. 3rd ed. Penguin Random House South Africa. ISBN 1920572252. [English]
-
Skevington JH, Locke MM, Young AD, Moran K, Crins WJ and Marshall SA. (2019). Field Guide to the Flower Flies of Northeastern North America. Princeton Field Guides. Princeton University Press: New Jersey. ISBN: 9780691189406. Print. [English]
-
Whyte R and Anderson G. (2017). A Field Guide to Spiders of Australia. 1st ed. CSIRO Publishing: Clayton. ISBN 9780643107076. Print. DOI http://doi.org/10.1071/9780643107083. Online. [English]
Fish (Actinopterygii / Cephalaspidomorphi / Elasmobranchii / Holocephali / Myxini / Sarcopterygii) 
-
Baensch HA and Riehl R. (1998). Aquarium Atlas, Volumes 1 – 4. 2nd ed. Steven Simpson Books: London. ISBN 3882440503. Print. [English]
-
Ford M (dir). (2020). Seriously Fishy – feeling fishy? Berlin, Germany. [English]
-
Froese R and Pauly D (eds). (2019). FishBase. World Wide Web electronic publication. Version 08/2019.
-
Malinconico B and Halliday S (dir). (2019). The Aquarium Wiki: the free encyclopedia of all things aquatic. A MediaWiki Project. [English]
Amphibians and Reptiles (Amphibia / Reptilia) 
-
Becker D, Pingleton M and Smith CE (BOD). (2020). HerpMapper – A Global Herp Atlas and Data Hub. Iowa, U.S.A. [English]
-
Frost DR. (2020). Amphibian Species of the World: an Online Reference. Version 6.0. Electronic Database. American Museum of Natural History, New York, USA. doi.org/10.5531/db.vz.0001. [English]
-
Midtgaard R. (2017). Nature’s Window: A gallery dedicated to wildlife, nature and travel photography in general and reptiles and amphibians in particular. [Danish, English, German]
-
Steinhoff S. (2020). The SnakeDatabase (SnakeDB). Berlin, Germany.
-
Uetz, P, Freed P and Hošek J. (eds.) (2019). The Reptile Database. [English, German]
Mammals (Mammalia) 
-
Castelló JR. (2016). Bovids of the World: Antelopes, Gazelles, Cattle, Goats, Sheep, and Relatives. Princeton Field Guides. Princeton University Press: Princeton. ISBN 0691167176. [Arabic, English, French, German, Hebrew, Russian, Spanish]
-
Child MF, Roxburgh L, Do Linh San E, Raimondo D, and Davies-Mostert HT (eds). The 2016 Red List of Mammals of South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland. South African National Biodiversity Institute and Endangered Wildlife Trust, South Africa. [Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Sepedi, Sesotho, Setswana, Tshivenda, Xhosa, Xitsonga, Zulu]
-
Gardner AL, Patton JL, Pardiñas UFJ and D’Elía G (eds). (2015). Mammals of South America, Volumes 1 – 2. 1st ed. University of Chicago Press: Chicago. Vol. 1 DOI: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226282428.001.0001. Vol 2 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/jmammal/gyv164. [English, Portuguese, Spanish]
-
Kingdon J, Happold D, Butynski T, Hoffmann M, Happold M and Kalina J. (2013). Mammals of Africa, Volumes I – VI. 1st ed. Bloomsbury Natural History. Bloomsbury Publishing: London. ISBN 9781408122570. Print. [English, French, German]
Disclaimers 
-
The list will be subject to updates. Not every reference I have ever used is represented here yet, but presently encompasses a fairly large portion of them. Some names I have integrated come from very old or obscure field guides, and consequently are hard to relocate. The list as is a a great place to start, and if you know of any other references - especially ones that encompass obscure taxa or
-
There are caveats with a number of these sources, either with how they should be navigated or with how their names themselves, so be considerate when using them. ( for example, see the entries for Wikidata or BugGuide above.)
-
This list is taxonomically biased towards arthropods, fish, reptiles, amphibians, marine invertebrates, and plants. This is because many of these taxa have legitimately established common names that are not integrated into iNaturalist. Additionally, there is a focus on non-North American taxa. This is because most North American species have their common names already integrated into iNaturalist.