The curator guide says: “Hybrids should only be made between taxa of the same rank. Hybrids like Canis lupus × canis lupus ssp. familiaris don’t make sense. That’s like saying you made a new kind of vehicle by combining the traits of a Honda Civic and a car.” I recommend changing this to: “Hybrid…

Addendum: an additional sentence like this might also be helpful: “If creating a hybrid taxon with parents of different ranks, give the name of each parental taxon in full, for instance Setophaga coronata auduboni × Setophaga townsendi rather than Setophaga coronata auduboni × townsendi.”

At present there are three kinds of hybrid taxa available to choose from when creating a new iNaturalist taxon: GenusHybrid, Hybrid, and InfraHybrid. I think some questions may need to be addressed before settling on a general rule for hybrid taxa in iNaturalist. GenusHybrid: intended for hybrids …

And another note: the format for hybrid formulae currently recommended in the Curator Guide (“the pattern GENUS SPECIES1 × SPECIES2”) is directly contrary to ICNafp Article H2.1 (Example 2).

Stop, you’re saying a hybrid of two subspecies of the same species is available? But we’re told it’s not.

If that’s not what the InfraHybrid rank is for, then I hope someone else will chime in and let us know what its intent is.

I haven’t really interacted with these different hybrid categories in iNaturalist and I’m not sure what functional role they have. From a nomenclatural viewpoint, named hybrid taxa are a different category of thing from hybrids designated by hybrid formulae. The former have names governed by the ru…

All true enough. The practical reality on iNaturalist, though, is that every taxon record created has to be given one of the ranks made available by iNaturalist. Otherwise iNaturalist doesn’t know how to construct its taxonomic tree, adjudicate ID disagreements, etc. Taxa based on hybrid formulae…

[image] jdmore: Otherwise iNaturalist doesn’t know how to construct its taxonomic tree, adjudicate ID disagreements, etc. In that context, the correct treatment of something like Setophaga coronata auduboni × Setophaga townsendi seems pretty obvious: The parent is Setophaga, ID disagreements …

[image] aspidoscelis: the correct treatment of something like Setophaga coronata auduboni × Setophaga townsendi seems pretty obvious: The parent is Setophaga, ID disagreements should kick it up to Setophaga. Agreed. [image] aspidoscelis: Accomplishing that by having the data say “this is…

[image] jdmore: The data won’t say that. They will say that the taxon is at Hybrid rank (in this case), or GenusHybrid or InfraHybrid rank, and the rank of it’s parent will be a further indication of what level of hybrid it is. Though equally inelegant, I think that conveys the same information …

Suggested change to curator guide: hybrid taxa of different ranks

Curators

Topic		Replies	Views
Change how the site handles hybrid taxa Feature Requests	32	2298	May 2, 2026
"Rules" for hybrid animal taxon names Curators	40	9525	February 3, 2020
Suggestion: Allow hybrids that specify a genus only Curators	25	2798	August 26, 2026
Method for finding hybrids erroneously created at rank species General	9	231	August 6, 2026
Can we add "subspecies" hybrids? Curators	19	1988	October 28, 2022

Suggested change to curator guide: hybrid taxa of different ranks

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