What is iNat policy (or community consensus) in cases where there are multiple accepted names for the same biological species?

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I’m dealing with a complicated case with strong opinions on both sides. The timeline is this: Misumena hilaris is described in 1877, then Misumena pseudovatia is described in 1937. In 2004, Misumena pseudovatia is transferred to the genus Ebrechtella (type species is Ebrechtella coccinea), and Misumena hilaris is made the type species of the genus Henriksenia. It is later discovered that the genitalia of Henriksenia hilaris and Ebrechtella pseudovatia are identical, leading several authors to acknowledge that they are almost certainly conspecific. They refrain from synonymizing them on the basis that they have not personally compared both type specimens, but everyone who has published on them agrees they’re conspecific. Additionally, if you compare photos of Ebrechtella pseudovatia to the type species Ebretchella coccinea, they are obviously not congeneric, while Ebrechtella pseudovatia is obviously congeneric with other described Henriksenia species. There are some questions about the validity of Henriksenia, and it may be renamed or split, which some identifiers have used as a reason to not use the name Henriksenia hilaris.

So my question is: as an identifier, which of the two currently valid names for the same species do I use? Some pros and cons:

Pros for Ebrechtella pseudovatia: the name is in widespread use in several print guides, and is currently the dominant name on iNaturalist.

Cons: the CV is already starting to incorrectly ID other Henriksenia species as Ebrechtella pseudovatia.

Pros for using Henriksenia: this would get us closer to monophyly. (Ebrechtella would still undoubtedly be polyphyletic, after the recent addition of Ebrechtella ornatissima to the genus.)

Cons: it would be at odds with local guides.

Yet another consideration: there are other Ebrechtella species, such as Ebrechtella hongkong, which are said to be almost identical to Ebrechtella pseudovatia and can currently only be identified via dissection. This means we may need to push observations of Ebrechtella pseudovatia back to genus anyway. However, no one in the literature has suggested that Ebrechtella hongkong is actually a Henriksenia, to my knowledge. Should we push them back to genus Ebrechtella or Henriksenia?

As a note, I am not necessarily asking for help adding identifications. They’re a difficult group to identify, and while I am extremely welcoming to new IDers, I know these forum posts sometimes lead to ambitious, well-intentioned IDers weighing in when all the context they have is this one forum post. I could easily be missing key information. I mainly want input on what iNat policy or community consensus is in cases where there are multiple accepted names for the same biological species.

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The consensus seems to be “go with whatever name you want”. I’m partly kidding, but not really. There’s lots of examples like this, and no clear guidance on what observers or identifiers should do when taxonomic authorities differ, or conflict with new research that hasn’t yet translated to change in the taxonomic authority that iNat uses.

If no authors or have synonymized them, iNat curators will probably be wary of doing so without a really good reason.

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I have a clarification question. You mentioned that there are other Ebrechtella species e.g. Ebrechtella hongkong which appear basically identical to Ebrechtella pseudovatia. But do you believe that Ebrechtella hongkong also belongs to Henriksenia, or that Ebrechtella hongkong is a bona fide member of Ebrechtella? If it’s the latter, then it’s possible you’d have to push observations of Ebrechtella pseudovatia to tribe level.

I think if you’re fairly certain that “Ebrechtella pseudovatia” and “Henriksenia hilaris” are truly the same species, then it kind of doesn’t matter, because eventually they’ll be “officially” synonymous and one name will be swapped into the other anyway.

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We try hard to have only one accepted name per species, usually following some general authority. Can’t always do that, though. This looks like a case that simply isn’t resolved yet. Put a name you think is right on the photos. Probably sooner or later they’ll become synonyms, which should be relatively easy to deal with on iNaturalist once relevant taxonomists agree. Whenever that might happen.

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The consensus is to go with what the specific community wants. But it should be sourced to some literature. I wouldn’t implement names/combinations that aren’t in use anywhere, unless maybe if everyone wanted them.

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Thanks! Two notes of clarification: This is a case where one taxonomic authority (the World Spider Catalog) lists both species and notes that they are likely synonyms. I’m also not looking to synonymize them on iNaturalist, just trying to figure out which name to use for identifying purposes.

I don’t have enough information to know. The persistent unanswered question when an author says “similar to species X” is whether they mean similar in terms of general appearance or similar in terms of genitalia under a microscope. True Ebretchella have translucent greenish carapaces and legs, with a variable abdomen (usually a silvery marbled look with various brown or reddish markings), while Ebrechtella pseudovatia is opaque, dull-colored, with a leathery, wrinkly abdomen—as are most Henriksenia. Many Misumenini have similar genitalia even when the general appearance is vastly different. I have considered pushing back to tribe, but I feel that would do a disservice as the tribe is already kind of a “dumping taxon” for blurry photos and photos at unfortunate angles that can’t be IDed further.

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My boring answer would be to wait for someone to get around to publishing a paper that synonymizes them and therefore gets the WSC to follow suit, but who knows how long that’s gonna take.

In the interim, I’d say just pick whatever makes the most sense to you, because if/when those species get synonymized, they’ll just get slammed together on iNat via a taxon change anyway.

If it were me just going off of what “makes sense” I’d just go with Henriksenia hilaris - first, you stated that you believe H. hilaris looks more like other Henriksenia than E. pseudovatia looks like other Ebrechtella - if the iNat photos I just googled up are accurately IDed, then yeah, I’d agree with that. Second, Misumena hilaris came first.

Even if that leads to disagreements where H. hilaris and E. pseudovatia IDs are present on the same observation, hopefully if they do get synonymized the iNat taxon change will take care of that.

Even if people doubt the validity of Henriksenia, it’s still valid right now, and that’s all we can do until the academics get around to cleaning up the taxonomic mess. We’ll just have to pick up the pieces whichever way it plays out, because you can’t really predict that until you see the paper.

And honestly, you can’t really worry about a taxon change affecting field guides - updates to taxonomy make those out of date all the time anyway.

I don’t know how to answer the E. hongkong question at this time, that’s a tough one without any good indication of the way [insert academic here who decides to publish a paper to clean up the taxonomy] is leaning.

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Just to commiserate, this is definitely a widespread problem in spiders, where the literature is still so far behind.

Another case study: Gasteracantha hecata and G. clavigera were described from the Philippines historically. In 1995, two authors described G. parangdiadesmia and G. janopol, which appear to be identical to the historically described species, but the authors did not reference those old species or explain how their new descriptions differed in any way (it appears as though they were ignorant of or chose to ignore those existing species). WSC currently accepts all four species, and no subsequent publication has examined this issue as far as I know.

In this case, I personally prefer to ID these organisms on iNat with the earliest accepted species names as I believe the 1995 names need to be formally synonymized. But people using Philippines literature or other sources still use the 1995 names or express confusion about how to tell the difference, which is understandable.

Meanwhile, there are a couple of apparently undescribed gasteracanthines on Borneo, one of which is frequently identified on iNat as G. clavigera, despite differing in several obvious ways from the Philippine G. clavigera/janopol. I had been forcing those IDs back to genus with a note that it’s probably an undescribed species; however, some authors in Thailand moved the taxon hasselti out of Gasteracantha and into into Macracantha, in the process suggesting that several other long-spined SE Asian species should also be moved if the generic split is valid (which some have questioned). So now, it’s not really clear whether to identify the Borneo form as Gasteracantha, Macracantha, or Gasteracanthinae….

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Yeah, “in need of taxonomic revision“ is unfortunately an all-too-common phrase. Guess that’s what happens when the yeoman’s work of cleaning up taxonomy just doesn’t attract the funding dollars and talented personnel that it used to.

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Thanks everyone. Seems like the best option for now is for me to offer my ID of Henriksenia with an explanation (or linking to this post). If an individual observer expresses that they still think it should be identified as Ebrechtella pseudovatia, then I will withdraw (or they can opt out of the community ID for that observation if I don’t withdraw quick enough).

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