https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/56756-Murgantia-histrionica
Harlequin Bug listed as native to United States but in Maryland it is noted as “arrived in region by anthropocentric means” Is there some reason Maryland is not part of the United States as far as the Harlequin Bug is concerned or is it only native to a portion of the country?
The latter. It is likely native to some states but introduced in others.
Or if this isn’t correct for this particular species, it can be for other things
If you check the status tab on that page, every checklist has it as introduced. According to Bugguide, it’s native to Central America and invasive in the US. So it looks as if the source calling it native may be wrong.
It is the iNat taxa that calls it native to US . . . time for an edit?
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/56756-Murgantia-histrionica
Yeah, I saw that – based on a checklist that I didn’t click through to. You can always flag the taxa for curation.
And the USDA data for native range are sometimes outdated, using old historic records of presence for occurrence. When I want to determine whether something is native to New England (we’re being overwhelmed with prairie meadow seed species introductions lately), I try to get at least three major wildflower orgs to agree.
I do think it would be terrific if every iNaturalist post required (not an optional checkmark) a notation for native to that region or not-- and ask posters to do a little homework to be sure. I’m not going to confirm American trumpet vine in Russia until they tell me why it was there (i.e. cultivated? escaped?). Sure shot way to get people to be involved and dig deeper.
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