I am still getting instances of scientific name displaying instead of Common name which I have chosen in my settings. How can I stop this please. I don’t want to see scientific name first. This is a Carib Grackle, that’s enough for me, if people want to ID it down to subspecies that’s fine but I don’t want to see it displayed first, and not showing the Common name at all.
This is fine if there’s no Common name but that’s not the case.
Thank you
that particular subspecies has no common name associated with it (at least, none on iNat), so the system is working as it should be. Currently on iNat, only 2 of the 8 subspecies of this species have had common names added to them.
OK thanks, but it’s a Carib Grackle regardless and as a birder not a scientist that’s all I want to see. Who do I petition for the the missing common name please. Perhaps it should be St Lucia Grackle.
if that subspecies has an existing common name, you can add it via the taxon page; however, a common name shouldn’t be made up if one doesn’t exist already
Can’t it just say Carib Grackle ssp. inflexirostris ?
That’s an interesting compromise but if you added that name (is it a scientific name or a common name), the resulting display name would be long and redundant. It brings up a good point, though. Each subspecies is a member of Carib Grackle sensu lato so it should be possible to leverage that somehow. How about Carib Grackle “sensu lato” (Quiscalus lugubris ssp. inflexirostris)? Or something like that.
@GlosterBirder I added a common name as an experiment. Is that any better?
No please do not do that unless the subspecies has a legitimate common name.
But sensu lato (broadly) is neither scientific nor common.
If scientific, it is superfluous to the name.
If ‘common’ it should be local language, not Latin. And in established usage, not invented for iNat - which is against guidelines.
I think this is a misuse of the term sensu lato, which is used to refer to a broader circumscription of the taxon it modifies (when that taxon has been given multiple circumscriptions). A single subspecies of Carib grackle does not represent a broader circumscription of the Carib grackle species: the opposite is true. I’m going to remove this common name, especially since it isn’t in use anywhere I can see online.
my instinct is that the concern raised in this topic is not something that will be fixed by users/curators, as there are tons of subspecies-level taxa without common names. Staff will have to decide whether there should be a change to whether a subspecies-level CID should change the displayed common name when the subspecies itself has no common name. On the one hand, that request seems reasonable to me. On the other, it suggests that we should treat the subspecies rank fundamentally differently from other ranks, which I disagree with.
A related feature request: Display common name for species when infraspecies (e.g. subspecies) lacks one
I don’t understand why one user’s unexplained reluctance to view scientific names first, in limited circumstances, is creating a push for sitewide change.
I am not trying to be insensitive, but we all have things we would like to tweak.
Asking someone to bear the occasional scientific name when multiple identifiers take the time to look at an Observation seems a small ask.
The explanation is simple, not that I needed any guidance with this species, but I would ask the guide or fellow birders, where can I find Carib Grackle, not can you help me find Quiscalus lugubris ssp. inflexirostris because I’m pretty sure most people wouldn’t understand the request.
maybe I’m misunderstanding your concern here, but observations identified as Quiscalus lugubris inflexirostris will still pop up when you search Carib Grackle, just like observations of Carib Grackle will pop up when you search “bird.” The taxonomic tree is a nested hierarchy, like matryoshka dolls, so a subspecies ID doesn’t remove the observation from the species-level bucket, it just further refines its placement in a smaller sub-bucket. Of course it may still be annoying not to see a common name on your observation, but your observation has not been rendered less findable with respect to the iNaturalist search filters.
Do you mean the occasional scientific name appearing on iNaturalist affects your spoken conversation with fellow enthusiasts?
edit to add: it would seem though, if it does, that the best course of action is to support this feature request.
Some sources do seem to refer to this subspecies as the St. Lucia Grackle so I am adding that common name
It is possible I am misunderstanding this, but this doesn’t seem to specify the subspecies but rather refer to all the birds the original poster would like called Carib Grackles. The good people of St. Lucia perhaps refer to any such grackles of that species they see in terms of their own island and would like them protected.
Your other source does specify subspecies but refers to it as the Santa Lucia Grackle. It is from 1893 but perhaps that common name ought to be included as well.
Thank you. Perfect.
