I have seen a few IDs now by seemingly seasoned identifiers marked as subspecies (i.e.; ‘Pica pica’ to ‘P. pica pica’/‘Anser anser’ as ‘A. anser anser’) with the only difference being Location. Since many of these species move about, some even migrating across continents, why the subspecies ID? I w…

Unfortunately, “subspecies” is probably the most controversial taxonomic category. Species (in the general sense, without some edge cases) have unique characters that distinguish them from other taxa, and higher-ranking taxa are groups of species with a common set of characters and a common (likely)…

There’s been a fair amount of conversation about this issue in previous posts. Some useful ones are: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/id-based-on-range-or-appearance/524 https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/benefit-significance-of-adding-subspecies/38461 so referring to the ideas there may be useful.

[image] kgrebennikov: without clear criteria for distinguishing and methods of evaluating them (at least as imperfect as for species) it is difficult to use this concept as something objective. Without it, I fear that we may find ourselves in the abyss of solipsism. This reminds me of some re…

I’m specifically referring here to birds which do not visibly differ being tagged by supposed experts as a subspecies based purely on location. And yeah there also seems to be a lot of confusion in who accepts what subspecies. I know that P. pica pica specifically, for instance, dates back to Linnae…

[image] kgrebennikov: . Species (in the general sense, without some edge cases) have unique characters that distinguish them from other taxa, unfortunately taxonomy is moving away from this (broadly, not just on iNat). Over time, expect things that were previously subspecies to be elevated to…

I understand if there are noticeable differences. Where that is the case, I want to learn what they are and learn to ID them. My confusion comes in where people are tagging these inconsistently, especially where I cannot see any source for learning these differences where they do exist. Do you have …

Thank you. This answers the question I asked 100%

I appreciate the detail you went to. It answers my question, in a very roundabout fashion. The question was - when is it actually possible to be certain of these IDs for myself and where would I find that information. The answer is that most of the IDs I’ve been confused about fall into the “One can…

This neatly encapsulates the problem with classification generally. In this case, for the sake of as close to accuracy as possible within the iNaturalist system, I will not be classifying any subspecies which isn’t blatantly obvious (such as Pied Wagtails) as it seems an unnecessary gamble which wil…

I’ve appreciated all of the thoughtful comments and qualified insights very much. Since the question has been answered, this thread can be closed. Thanks again, all!

Question Regarding Subspecies Identification

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Question Regarding Subspecies Identification

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