Reliable sources for common names on iNaturalist

@bobby23, I’ll definitely attest to that. A number of well-intentioned names also end up being imported from Flickr, where it was intended as a passing description and not a unique English identifier. Part of the issue is that there really aren’t many compilations of common names apart from field guides, which are absent or lacking for many groups, and people are often quick to want a way to refer to the species without using Latin.

It really depends on what taxonomic group you’re dealing with, to be honest. There are often common or best practices within each, and some taxa may have different forms of common names with varying acceptance, even regionally, within the same language (see lady beetle vs ladybird beetle vs ladybug vs lady bug in English). Another difficulty is duplicated common names (see removal of about 100+ uses of “avispa negra” in Spanish). Insects, and really invertebrates in general, tend to be really difficult to work with common names. My gut suspicion is that there would be more of an issue with common names used in Lithuania.

Another difficulty, especially with insects, is that a lot of published common names don’t actually apply to just a single species but often to a larger taxonomic group. For example, many resources will call Bicyrtes quadrifasciatus simply a Stink Bug Hunter (Wasp). However, this name actually applies to much of the genus. So a more appropriate common name, which is already in use, was the Four-banded Stink Bug Hunter (Wasp). This is now a 1:1 name, and it happens to align with the Latin epithet (some Latin names are more helpful than others). Again, I would presume other language common names (or colloquial names) may run into this problem as well (interestingly, this doesn’t seem to be as much of an issue in German).

Another point is that exactly what we mean by “common name” has some different meanings in different circles. Is it a name in common usage or a name in a common language? While these often overlap, they are definitely different concepts. Some insects in the US have ESA authorized common names (the exact formatting is the only permitted English name to use for that species in any ESA publication). Their guidelines for new common name submissions are rather helpful for considering whether a newer English name is appropriate beyond some form of 1:1 usage. They, of course, don’t have as good commentary when it comes to other (esp. non-invertebrate) groups. But it also does seem that a good chunk of common name issues come from invertebrates anyway, due to outnumbering any other taxonomic group by a significant amount.

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