Platform: Android and Website
App version number, if a mobile app issue: 1.36.2 (622)
Browser, if a website issue: Chrome v. 136.0.7103.114
URLs (aka web addresses) of any relevant observations or pages: https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/1597681-Sphecodina
Screenshots of what you are seeing:
Description of problem:
Step 1: Go to Tribe Halictini
Step 2: select “view children”
Step 3: select subtribe Sphecodina and compare About section text with photo and taxonomy
There is already a taxon flag for this. Although updating Wikidata doesn’t seem to have fixed it.
https://www.inaturalist.org/flags/717342
The link probably can be manually set, but this does seem to be a bug.
So Sphecodina is the name of both a bee subtribe and a moth genus?
I think fundamentally this is derived from a taxonomic issue. The wasp subtribe and the moth genus are homonyms. If I understand this correctly, the homonymy rules (based on the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, Chap. 12, Article 52) dictate that the junior (i.e. later described) taxon would need to be changed to something else. This would take a little research into the origins of the two taxa. Then taxonomic experts in one or the other insect group would have to publish a new/different taxon name.
We have homonyms and semi-homonyms scattered across iNat like violets in a lawn.
Sphecodina (bees) is neuter plural, the type genus being Sphecodes; Sphecodina (moth) is feminine singular, and is written in italics. What does the code say about homonymy of two names in different rank groups?
How did the moth get that name, which means “wasplike”?
Partial answer: The moth genus Sphecodina was erected by Blanchard in 1840 but the genus of wasps Sphecodes was erected by Latreille in 1804. From the wikimedia page, it’s unclear to me when the subtribe “Sphecodina” was erected and that would be the relevant date. A quick search in the Biodiversity Heritage Library seems to indicate that the earliest use of the supra-generic combination “Sphecodina” among Hymenoptera may be in Johannes Leunis’ Synopsis der Theirkunde (1886) in which he keys out several groups of “Apidae” including a group termed “Sphecodina” (p. 212).
Within the animal kingdom (i.e., disregarding plant names), ICZN makes no distinction as to taxonomic rank. It simply says, “When two or more taxa are distinguished from each other they must not be denoted by the same name” (ICZN, Art. 52.1).
I don’t know who on iNat or the iNat Forum is an expert on ICZN rules–not me! On iNat, Dr. John S. Ascher (@johnascher) is one of our bee experts but I don’t think he is on the Forum much.
That’s not quite correct. The Code distinguishes between three groups of names – family group (superfamily, family, subfamily, tribe, etc.), genus group (genus and subgenus), and species group (aggregate, species, and subspecies). Names only compete for homonymy within one group, so occasionally you get identical names that are a subtribe of bees and a genus of moths (Sphecodina), or a genus of flies and an order of dinosaurs (Thyreophora).
this is a bug with what wikipedia article the taxon page links to which is not an inat bug, there are other forum posts on how curators can fix this
Thanks, Chris. I suspected I might have been oversimplifying the homonymy rule. Can you point me to that part of the Code which distinguishes the three groups of names for Code purposes?
Unfortunately, the ICZN Code doesn’t lay it out quite as explicitly as I said it. (Which is weird, since they sometimes go to great lengths to clarify edge cases.) But throughout the Code, they basically always separate rules pertaining to each group of names into their own articles and/or chapters. In this case, it’s implicit in the text of Article 53, which separately defines homonymy for the family-, genus-, and species group.
Similarly, the glossary reads:
homonym, n.
(1) In the family group: each of two or more available names having the same spelling, or differing only in suffix, and denoting different nominal taxa. (2) In the genus group: each of two or more available names having the same spelling, and denoting different nominal taxa. (3) In the species group: each of two or more available specific or subspecific names having the same spelling, or spellings deemed under Article 58 to be the same, and established for different nominal taxa, and either originally (primary homonymy) or subsequently (secondary homonymy) combined with the same generic name [Art. 53.3]. For examples, see Article 53.1 for family-group names, Article 53.2 for genus-group names, and Article 53.3 for species-group names. [emphasis mine]
Note that all the examples they give stay within one group of names.
In the same way, when a tribe of animals might has only one genus in it (ex. the ringtails, Bassariscini & Bassariscus), they are taxonomically equivalent to one another, but the genus is not considered a synonym of the tribe in nomenclatural terms. This is even still the case when, for weird nomenclature reasons, you end up with a family name and a single genus name which are quite different (e.g. Stenocephalidae & Dicranocephalus).
Yes - just wanted to bring this to the attention of someone with the ability to link to the correct page, thanks
next time flag the taxon page and a curator will see it and take care of it from there
Ok, thank you very much, sorry for any confusion I may have caused!
Chris, I’ve read and re-read the various ICZN articles related to homonymy and, as best as I can interpret them, you are correct that two names of different rank do not count as homonyms for ICZN purposes. The two uses of “Sphecodina” discussed in this thread are thus homonyms in the linguistic sense but not for taxonomic purposes. My head is spinning…
