I noticed that certain taxa have species IDs but are only identifiable by DNA according to the literature. For example, Genus Cryptocercus (a less than charismatic cockroach). In the Appalachian mountains 4 species occur, separated by geography, but not morphology. Nevertheless, we see species-level…

Researchers need identifiable photos with accurate locations or dates. That’s all. We all like good quality photos better than poor ones, but as long as it’s identifiable, it’s useful. So post what you have. What’s identifiable? Often we don’t know! So we do our best and let the IDers for a pa…

[image] rayray: People often don’t like observations of very common species that cannot be taken beyond genus. I thought of an experiment. Photograph a dandelion, including all the possible traits that some people think define microspecies, and see if anyone actually ventures to identify the …

[image] jasonhernandez74: It is very easy to look smart by disputing a common ID; less so to offer something of substance. I really don’t think it’s about “looking smart”, it’s about people who want to create accurate data. Personally, I get very annoyed by people IDing things to species leve…

Depending on what reference material observers are using, they might only think that Common Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) is their only option. I know I misidentified it down to species before I knew better…

I used to think it was the only one as well! So much for the “easy” plants, hah.

Well, not everyone agrees with microspecies concept at all too.

I’m not entirely sure what a microspecies is in this case. I know there’s subspecies (ssp) and variety (var), but I’m not sure if @jasonhernandez74 means something like Common Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) vs Remarkable Dandelion (Taraxacum insigne) ?

I know there are a lot of people just breezing through and clicking “agree”, which is needed and useful, but there are also a lot of people (me included) that do not like subspecies so they try and keep their ID’s to species only. I don’t know why they would push your dandelion to “section” when yo…

[image] vreinkymov: I’m not entirely sure what a microspecies is in this case. Dandelion reproduction is a combination of asexual seed set (which produces clones) and sexual seed set, including reproduction involving pollen from a second species that (usually) produces its own seed asexually.…

I’m not surprised to find dandelions being the subject of discussion again, haha! Yes, those are tricky, and so are a lot of other plants where there are multiple species that look very similar (e.g. Erythronium umbilicatum in my area and E. americanum ). Based on my own experience, in cases like th…

Species ID errors in difficult taxa?

General

Topic		Replies	Views
Lumping Impossible/Hard to ID species General	45	2326	August 31, 2023
Etiquette for ID of species with no visual differences General identification , etiquette	159	8548	March 23, 2020
Changing of ID from specific species to higher taxa General	30	1348	February 16, 2020
How much expertise should we have when identifying? General	74	6277	August 24, 2020
How to deal with observations that attain research grade, though only ID of the genus should be made? General	25	1301	March 26, 2021

Species ID errors in difficult taxa?

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