Same Genus name for an insect and a plant--Phoebe

Pretty much how Wikipedia does it.

That was precisely the inspiration, yes! It works well there, it works well here.

Found it:

That appears to be a typo in iNat. The frog should be Acrisinae.

Makes sense, now it needs to be fixed.

No, not actually a typo:
https://www.inaturalist.org/flags/317410
Read comments

3 Likes

Well, found another Genus used twice within Animalia and once in Plantae:
Thunbergia plant: https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/129035-Thunbergia
Thunbergia spider: https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/1270938-Thunbergia
Thunbergia insect/seedbug: https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/552329-Thunbergia

Is this allowed: same Genus twice within Animalia?
Also, the About page for the Spider Thunbergia on iNat right now describes the Plant genus.

Neither of the Thunbergia genera in Animalia have wiki pages, auto description has been disabled

Looks like the arachnid Thunbergia was just described last year, so someone will likely come along and point out that the genus name is already occupied in Animalia and propose a new name.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342359433_A_harvestman_with_elaborate_palpal_pliers_Thunbergia_gretae_n_gen_n_sp_from_China_Opiliones_Sclerosomatidae_Gagrellinae

5 Likes

What this thread shows is that taxonomy can be a messy and complicated business. Names for species and genera are proposed but might not be available for use (already occupied). Or it’s found that a name was previously proposed in the literature and therefore has priority over the new proposed name (the older name is then “resurrected” for use).

It’s interesting to me that iNaturalist performs a valuable role in identifying some of these issues. It might be the best single source on the web for detecting taxonomic problems across all organisms.

3 Likes

You can use iNaturalist to look up currently valid names already in use, but if a name has already been used and is now invalid (a synonym) it wouldn’t show up in a search of iNat.

That’s true. I was thinking more of active taxa. I did run across an odd one yesterday in which the current binomial and a junior synonym were both active on iNat at the same time: Bouteloua barbata and Chondrosum barbatum. I’m guessing both names might be recognized by some botanists at present but only one can be active at a time on iNat. I flagged it and looks like it’s already fixed…

1 Like

I was told that iNat is following what is accepted on Plants of the World Online to keep things consistent. Which in this case would be Bouteoua barbata.
http://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:35575-2

3 Likes

This topic was automatically closed 60 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.