What Avian Subspecies Are Available?

[estabrooks]

Greetings. I uploaded an observation of a Black-throated Blue Warbler (Setophaga caerulescens) which was clearly, by morphology, subspecies cairnsi (“Appalachian”), but I was not (as far as I can tell) given the option of identifying it at the subspecific level.

This struck me as odd, since iNaturalist has a taxa page for this subspecies:
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/730285-Setophaga-caerulescens-cairnsi

What do I need to do to ID my observation to the subspecies level for this species?

Thanks.

[bouteloua]

Did you include ssp when you tried typing in the ID? if you exclude that, it should appear in the ID dropdown.

[cmcheatle]

I assume you mean this observation here
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/28566142

I notice you used the computer vision suggestion to do the ID. The computer vision tool does not suggest down to subspecies level, only species. If you wish to add a subspecies level ID you need to type it in by hand. In most cases this means starting to type the scientific name as most subspecies do not have common names.

[kiwifergus]

also, just typing the first three letters of each part of the binomial should give a shortlist that includes subspecies

[jennformatics]

Whoa; mind blown! I didn’t know it would do internal string matching like that! Thanks!

[fogartyf]

To answer the question in the general case, iNat aligns with the subspecies included in the latest Clements checklist. Occasionally there is an omission, typically when it’s a subspecies that isn’t field identifiable but those can be added by curators.

[kiwifergus]

It works for common names too, eg “app blu war”