The exception to this that I can think of are whiptail lizards (genus Aspidoscelis) in which a number of named species are derived from hybridization of two or even three other named species. All of the hybrid taxa are parthenogenetic and many are triploid. But they are a special case, more like plants than most vertebrate animals in their tendency to hybridize and then perpetuate themselves.
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Not only lizards, look at plants, lots of species are in fact multiple hybrids.
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Yes, as I noted. Whiptail lizards are rather unique among animals so thought of them since the topic is hybrid animal taxon names
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Yeah, I just think that even headline states anmals it’s not only about them.
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There are already standardized rules and recommendations for plant hybrid names (+fungi and algae), so this topic is specifically regarding animal names.
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I’m curious. What source do you learn about the whiptails? It would be interesting to see what “species” might actually be hybrids.
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I apologize if this sounds dismissive, but the primary purpose of iNaturalist is to connect its user base with nature. Why does it matter if a user cannot assign their pet to such a granular rank as a trihybrid? Why must this be reflected in our taxonomic database?
While in principle I agree that standardization of “style” is important, my preference as a curator is to integrate hybrid taxa conservatively. Most of the requests I have seen for hybird animal taxa are largely artificial domestic hybrids that do not occur in any wild state or are largely speculative. My preference would be to not add anything as granular as a trihybrid. If people wanted to be more granular with their observation, they can always use Observation Fields.
And I’m fine with that, I’m just curious as to if we were to implement those F2/F3 hybrids, what would be their names? And as a reminder, there is a F2 or trihybrid warbler that was spotted in the wild and made national news. It is banded so I suspect one might her again and post onto iNat. What do we do then?
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ID as the most appropriate (but valid) iNat taxa that is available at the time. That might be genus, or family for an inter-genus hybrid, or it might be the taxa representing the “dominant trait expression parent”. It would be a good idea to note in the description or comments the exceptional nature of the subject, and perhaps if the actual hybridisation details where known, that could be reflected in that description, in comments, or in observation fields.
Probably the most significant thing you could do, is link up the observations with “Similar observation set”, perhaps using the banding code as the unique identifier. Then it can be regularly reviewed for what taxa is being applied to observations of it, in order to establish some consistancy in identification.
As far as iNat is concerned, “Aves” would be a perfectly acceptable ID. Any refinement on that is really just a bonus :)
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Off topic from the last replies but still falls under this subject’s category; what are thoughts on the allowance of intergrades, subspecies breeding with other subspecies?
My example is going to be something like the Red-tailed Hawk. We know that Harlan’s intergrade with adjacent subspecies and US subspecies intergrade with others. However, one definition of subspecies is closely-related geographically variants of a species with feature overlap and hence the reason they are not a species. To put in better perspective…
One pure calurus Red-tailed out of a hundred can look nearly identical to borealis and vice versa. Since features overlap they are subspecies not species. But if there’s intergrades that can look intermediate, how do we distinguish them from a pure that may look like another?
So I’m curious as to thoughts on how many intergrade taxon we should add if we see an intermediate bird.
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I’m still in thoughts of what we shoud do with “intergrades” of Masked and White Wagtail, as iNat recognises the first as subspecies and there’re 2 other subspecies that can be included. Creating 2 intergrades makes no sence, you won’t be able to id which subspecies it was, creating one is not possible since we don’t have M. alba sensu lato which exists on eBird e.g.
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Okay, I’m not fully understanding. Are you talking about intergrades between M. alba personate and M. alba alba? I’m not familiar with the species but I’m not sure how prevalent or even identifiable intergrades are within the species. On the other hand, I would be interested in iNat implementing Western Yellow Wagtail intergrades as according to the Clements/eBird checklist.
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It’s Motacilla alba baicalensis or M. a. dukhunensis x M. a. personata.
Most are easily identifiable, of course, there always those who have one feather of the wrong colour or sometimes have “hidden” patches. The problem is within 2 first subspecies, one has white throat and more white on wing, the second has black throat and less white. But if that’s the integrade with Masked it’s not a part you want to rely on.
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Once again for clarification. Do I have it correct that the White Wagtail is having the same problem as the Western Yellow Wagtail where there are several “described” subspecies that are actually intergrades.
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No, I have no data how valid those are, probably good enough, they just have a zone of intergration with Masked (their mating cycles are different but overlap) and nowadays we have no way to add these intergrades as one parent subspecies is obvious (personata) and the other one can be 1 of 2 with no visual differences seen in their offspring.
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Ok, now I get it. I can bring back the Red-tailed Hawk scenario. A couple months ago I saw an odd Red-tailed in Oregon. The note that it’s not my expected subspecies calurus is the white uppertail coverts. That’s one of the features of the subspecies that doesn’t have much variation. But it’s not abieticola or borealis because of the rufous underwings. It’s probably that it’s an intergrade but with which one of the subspecies above is the question. But we also must consider the possibility that it is in range of normal variation.
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I think there’s some info on this in the iNat species accounts or Wikipedia. Aspidoscelis exsanguis, uniparens, velox, tesselatus, neomexicanus, and sonorae, among others, are all hybrid parthenogenetic (all female) taxa derived from 2-3 other named species that are at least in part typical male-female species. You obviously need a male to generate a hybrid lineage, but once created males are superfluous. A couple of tetraploid species have also been created through crossbreeding in the lab (A. neavesi, A. priscillae). Fascinating group.
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It’s interesting that when a plant is proven a hybrid through DNA testing, the “×” is added between the genus and “species” name. Perhaps this can open up a new choice in deciding F2 and F3 hybrids in the animal kingdom. Because surely one would live knowing it as…
Aspidoscelis velox – Plateau Striped Whiptail
So by following the plant guidelines, it would be logical to rename the species as…
Aspidoscelis × velox
Instead of the suggestion I had to name F2/F3 hybrids.
Aspidoscelis [burti × inornata] × burti
Should that be the case for all F2/F3 hybrids? Probably not, depends on if the hybrid is described as species originally or not. And for those interested in the topic of Aspidoscelis, here’s a 200 page paper on the hybrids and genus.
I also thought I’d add the topic in which I learned about plant hybrid rules.
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/why-do-plant-hybrids-has-such-weird-scientific-names/6043
As for those wanting to learn more about Aspidoscelis trihybrids. Graph came from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780123014634500103
I read recently about Drosera tokaiensis which is known to have come from hybridization of D. rotundifolia and D. spatulata, but seems to be usually treated as a full species without the x symbol. I don’t know if it’s because there’s a self-sustaining population or what.