Currently, iNaturalist lacks a secondary taxonomic authority for Scorpiones A few arachnologists/scorpion enthusiasts have suggested The Scorpion Files be used as one, saying it’s very well-maintained and up to date. So, I wanted to see if anyone has any thoughts about iNat using it for our scorpion taxonomy. Let me know your thoughts!
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The scorpion taxonomy on Inaturalist is not very accurate. For example, Uroctonus mordax is placed in Vaejovidae instead of Chactidae. I think it would be a great idea to use The Scorpion Files as the secondary taxonomic authority for Inaturalist. This would clear up many of these issues. I have been using the site for years and I do not have any complains regarding their taxonomy.
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I second the notion of making use of The Scorpion Files taxonomy in iNaturalist. While there is some level of disagreement among scorpiologists about whether some taxa constitute valid species, The Scorpion Files are kept up-to-date with all of the recently described Vaejovis and recent splitting of genera being current. As a recent scorpion enthusiast, I have been frustrated on occasion when species I’m reporting have been missing from the iNaturalist database.
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@azgulo Welcome to the iNaturalist forum, and thanks for joining us! Regarding species missing from the iNat database, hopefully you have flagged a parent taxon and mentioned the issue, and gotten quick response from a curator. But if any flags have been missed by us, definitely keep letting us know.
No. There are two major camps among scorpion taxonomists and I (and many actual scorpion biologists I speak with) disagree with the camp and scheme that Scorpion Files follows. We are talking FAMILY level disagreements. Unfortunately, it is indeed one of the only resources that is updated with regularity. If you want a partial explanation of the different camps, download my paper JACOBI, M. 2018. The Toothed Scorpions of the United States. Journal of the British Tarantula Society 33(3): 9-18 at https://www.mjacobi.com/publications
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I cannot overstate how diametrically opposed the two distinct “camps” are and those professionals I rely on for insight into scorpion taxonomy overwhelmingly disagree with the “camp” that Scorpion Files follows.
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Regarding the misplaced genus, Uroctonus, I flagged the taxon but it got lost in the heaps of flags that followed and was never actually looked at.
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I suspected there would be disagreement regarding families such as Superstitioniidae or Diplocentridae. Personally, I do not have an opinion on this.
I reccomended the Scorpion Files because it has a complete and regularly updated species list which is not found anywhere else as far as I know.
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Would it be possible to adopt the higher level taxonomy of Prendini & Wheeler and then track the taxonomic changes that are announced on The Scorpion Files? I don’t know of any site where these updates are tracked. And thanks for sending the link to the Diplo paper! Looks nice. I only have two Diplos thus far.
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So should we go with Fet & Soleglad, 2005 (aka Scorpion Files) or Prendini & Wheeler, 2005?
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I am in agreement with Chris. Since the status of Diplocentridae is disputed on the Scorpion Files, if we can use Pendini & Wheeler, 2005 for higher level taxonomy and the scorpion files for genera and species, that would probably be best in my opinion.
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After a bit of backchannel discussion with Brandon and Kari, the consensus among the three of us would be to follow Prendini & Wheeler 2005 and more specifically the workings of the American Museum of Natural History’s Scorpion Systematics Research Group. There have been significant modifications to subfamilies, genera, and species since that time, with publications listed on the AMNH site. With these higher level changes in place, keeping track of changes to genera and species through The Scorpion Files would put iNaturalist in a good place.
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without a maintained list of higher scorpion taxa on the site, I worry that referencing http://scorpion.amnh.org/page37/page37.html is going to be a mess. Any chance of getting:
a) the AMNH folks to publish such a list on their website (something analogous to https://www.ntnu.no/ub/scorpion-files/higher_phylogeny.php)
b) better yet, convince scorpion-files to adopt the higher taxonomy you suggest (arguing that the community won’t accept their current taxonomy)?
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This may be relevant to the discussion of which higher level taxonomy iNat wishes to follow. There has been some relatively recent work done looking at scorpion genetics that has not been entirely in sync with the morphological based taxonomic works. It is something worth following as I think it may ultimately clear up current conflicts. Perhaps it is not too important to settle on one camp or the other until things settle out in the next couple of years, so long as iNaturalist stays current with genus and species updates. Here is the citation for the most recent paper: Santibanez-Lopez, C. E. et al. Phylogenomics facilitates stable scorpion systematics: Reassessing the relationships of Vaejovidae and a new higher-level classification of Scorpiones (Arachnida). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 135 (2019) 22-30.
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Greetings all,
Scott Loarie asked me to comment on this thread so here goes.
To begin with, The Scorpion Files is not a professional site, it is not peer reviewed and the taxonomy reflected there is at the discretion of the webmaster. While I have no personal issues with him, and I believe he provides a service by maintaining a fairly up-to-date species checklist, he lacks the expertise to discriminate among the science he posts on his site. As such, his site provides equal, or more coverage of articles that have not passed rigorous peer review compared to others that have. This is epitomized by the classification he follows on the site, which was based on a thoroughly discredited analysis (for details see Prendini and Wheeler, 2005). Furthermore, much of what is posted on the site appears in homespun ‘journals’ with crony review, if any; other experts in the field (and I do not refer only to myself!) are never invited to review even for taxa where they are the most knowledgeable worldwide. Despite critiques in 2005, 2009 and again in 2016, there has been a proliferation of this problem in Arachnology as elsewhere (google ‘taxonomic vandalism’ for some examples). In short, do I recommend following The Scorpion Files? Perhaps it is useful as a species checklist, but the suprageneric classification promoted there should not be followed without a heavy dose of skepticism. Had I the time to maintain my own list, I would do so, but I don’t. I am way too busy with the science and my other duties (curation, expeditions and teaching) at the AMNH. Posting a higher classification to our AMNH lab website could be an option once our NSF Scorpion Phylogenomics grant (details below) is published, but that will not be for another two years or so as the project is still underway.
So, do I think the classification in Prendini and Wheeler (2005) is the answer? Not entirely, for several reasons. Firstly, the status quo classification presented there was an attempt to restore normalcy to a situation that was getting out of hand. For example, there has never, ever been doubt that Diplocentridae is a different family from Scorpionidae; there are numerous synapomorphies for Diplocentridae that are not shared by Scorpionidae, and vice versa (e.g., see Prendini, 2000) and many analyses to not even recover these families as a monophylum! However, the classification in Prendini and Wheeler (2005) was not suggested to be definitive and was expected to change. Secondly, it is 15 years old. In subsequent years, my research group and I continued researching the systematics of the order and revising the classification as we go. Various families were redefined along the way; take Hormuridae, for example. We now have a major NSF-DEB grant 1655050 to complete the job (for a summary, see https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1655050&HistoricalAwards=false). Other studies appeared in recent years, as mentioned in the thread. However, these studies apply an approach that is not without problems (e.g., a recent study based on the same methods suggests ricinuleids/hooded tick spiders are the closest relatives of horseshoe crabs!) giving pause to many arachnologists. Additionally, the taxon sampling in these works is heavily skewed and lacking lineages most experts consider critically important for rigorously reconstructing the phylogeny of an ancient group like scorpions. Unlike those studies, our approach will be based on a comprehensive sample of over 500 taxa and using a data source with a far better record for reconstructing deep level phylogeny (see recent publications on spider phylogeny by Hamilton and Bond, for example). We will also include organismal sources of data to test ‘traditional’ / ‘legacy’ hypotheses, not merely dismiss them out of hand. We expect many more changes in the phylogeny and suprageneric classification of scorpions just as we expect many well-known groups, already supported by copious synapomorphies, to be confirmed.
How does this affect iNaturalis? In my opinion, the prudent strategy, for the time being, is not a ‘one size fits all’ approach but rather to evaluate each case on its merits. I realize that may bother some, but science is never cut and dried. If this means applying Prendini and Wheeler (2005) for higher classification, with adjustments as needed, and The Scorpion Files for species checklist, with adjustments as needed, I support that.
Lorenzo Prendini
AMNH
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Good afternoon, Lorenzo. Any updates on this last communication and progress? Best.