Has this change been adopted by Butterflies and Moths of North America? Has the Integrated Taxonomic Information System incorporated this change?
Yes, I read your justification (https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_swaps/124231 ) and am underwhelmed. One of the sources you cite is a moth photographers group. If the Zhang et al material is so compelling, it would seem that BAMONA and ITIS would have adopted the change. Have they?
iNat used to require established secondary references to make taxonomic change but that isn’t the policy any more. Taxonomic changes are adopted on iNat based on pretty much any published paper and sometimes unpublished ones. I don’t know how it got that way but it doesn’t appear to be up for debate as i get dogpiled pretty hard when i speak up against it
@treichard Has the paragraph you cite (https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/60617484#page/17/mode/1up ) been peer reviewed? The para says that “our genomic studies” (not specified) support the view that Speyeria should be considered a subgenus within Argynnis, thus supporting Simonson’s 2006 “suggestion.” Have other specialists weighed in on this “suggestion”? If not, why doesn’t iNaturalist wait until this change is widely accepted, instead of being a “suggestion” that one research group supports? Their data may indeed be compelling. If so, sources like BAMONA and ITIS will adopt this “suggestion,” and at that point it would be appropriate for iNaturalist to do likewise.
Hi @ellenjones6, if you have a question about or comments on a taxon change, please use the comments section on the taxon change or a related flag. To create a flag if one does not exist, you can navigate to the taxon page, click Curation, and then Flag for Curation. We generally keep taxon-specific curation discussions on iNaturalist rather than here on the forum. thanks!
see comment above