Several times I’ve come across an animal that is identified once as “Columbian Black-tailed Deer”, a subspecies of the mule deer. I live in North Carolina, where the local deer is the white-tailed deer, the two being species of Odocoileus. I can tell the species apart (mule deer’s ears are bigger, antlers branch differently, and obviously, their tails are different colors), but I don’t know one subspecies from another. If I come across a deer with one ID as Columbian, and I can tell it’s a mule deer, should I identify it as mule deer or pass it?
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The best practice is to identify to whatever level you are completely confident of and not try to guess beyond that.
If I think an observation may be a species or subspecies and I’m not confident of that level of precision I may put that as a suggestion in a comment associated with my actual confident ID.
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You can add the species ID, if that is what you are sure of. You will get a pop-up asking if you don’t know if it is the subspecies, or you are sure it isn’t the sub-species. Choose the “I don’t know” option. Then the observation will become RG at species level. Other people might come along later to confirm the sub-species, or they might not.
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The popup wording is confusing, which has been discussed before. After staring at both wordings for several minutes (not on a mule deer, but on something else), I finally brought up the color picker to try to figure out which button is the one that doesn’t cause a disagreement. I can see they’re different colors, but not which one is named what.
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I’m sorry, I don’t really understand what you are saying there. But if you can’t work out which of the options to choose, perhaps just skip over those observations with sub-species you can’t confirm?
One thing I often do when adding a species ID on a record that already has a subspecies ID is to include a note along the lines of “I’m not disagreeing with the finer ID, this is just the level I’m currently confident in my own ability to recognize”. This can avoid some minor conflict of people getting worked up over a percieved criticism of the subspecies ID.
But yes, per your example I’d say it’s absolutely fine to add a mule deer ID to a record that already has an ID of Columbian Black-tailed Deer. If you think the subspecies ID may be correct, however, definitely follow Vireya’s explanation:
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If I know the species and not the subspecies, I identify the observation as the species. The pop-up gives two options. I choose the green (upper) one, which means that I’m IDing the species but not saying anything about the subspecies.
(This is what @Vireya already said, but adding the button color, which helps more than the confusing wording.)
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Thanks - I didn’t mention the colour because I honestly don’t remember which button is which colour. I just go by the words.
I found the words confusing, but go by color and position of the button.
I guess it is just a case of different people’s brains working in different ways!
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I check that I have achieved the ID I want.
Oops - that one Needed Hard Disagreement, this one is fine without.
Possibly an unintended consequence of the popup wording is that if an identifier wants an observation to remain at a higher taxon level, even though they know the lower level identification is correct, they must intentionally lie about their knowledge of the taxon. I often see disagreeing identifications by identifiers with thousands of identifications on species with only 2 or 3 subspecies that are easily recognized by features or geographical isolation. Reptiles and Bighorn Sheep seem to be common targets.
I suspect this is an attempt to undo the automatic location obscuration for listed subspecies. Hunters and pet trade collectors may be involved. Or people who just object to the automatic censorship for other reasons.
I’ve wondered the same thing–am I worthy to ID it? If you know it, ID it. iNat AI often gets me past the million distractions to where narrowing down a genus, or species is possible in a reasonable amount of time. Just be sure to go back down the levels to catch any look alikes, and check to make sure your ID is even in the area. You eat a tomato, but do you know every level of classification? Don’t forget that if we had to be perfect, noone would have heard of iNaturalist. You have integrity and that makes you a good iNat identifier\recommender!
Along the lines of “what is a species”, a question which could be argued ad nauseam, what makes a Mule Deer a Columbian Black-tailed Deer? Is it not simply that Mule Deer that is found in the Cascadia region is a Columbian Black-tailed Deer? So when making an ID, does one identify as a Mule Deer then default to Columbia Black-tailed Deer based on location? If so, is there any value in the distinction between the species vs subspecies?
Red-tailed Hawks are an illustrative example, with 15 listed subspecies, most of which - by common name at least - appear to be based on geographic distribution. I’m probably not the first person to question the utility of sustaining sub-specific distinctions, and I’m content to simply keep my ID’s at a species level, but sometimes it does rankle …
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When in doubt, pick the green button. Green is good. No conflict.
I’m personally not obsessed with subspecies for most taxa, so species level is fine most of the time.
There are physical differences between Columbian Black-tailed Deer (Odocoileus hemionis columbianus and the other subspecies of Mule Deer (O. hemionis in general). As is very often true, the variations occur in particular geographic areas. (This makes sense; animals breed with other nearby animals, so those near each other come to look more like each other than more distant ones.) I personally use geography to ID O. h. columbianus confidently even if the physical differences aren’t shown well in the photo. [Edit: I should note that I live in an area where the Mule Deer really are all one subspecies, but there are places where I would be more cautious.]
The answer to this really depends on exactly what you mean. In a general biological sense, yes it does matter; the subspecies really do differ and that difference can be worth naming. In terms of iNaturalist observations, either name works over most of the range because they’re interchangeable. Using the subspecies name (if it can be determined from the photo) is especially useful at the edge of the subspecies’ range, where it merges in to the other subspecies.
Taxonomic rank is often arbitrary but the variation behind it is (if all goes well) real. What we call subspecies today we may feel it’s more appropriate to call species tomorrow (e.g. the Scrub Jay complex). Or what we now call species we may decide to treat as subspecies. As a practical matter, I often overlook subspecies, but that is not a matter of principle. The variation out there is real and naming it can usually be appropriate, despite any intergradation.
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I’ll ID at subspecies level if that subspecies is of conservation concern/interest but only if I’m confident of that level of ID. Or if the subspecies is obvious (e.g., a Red-eared Slider vs. a Yellow-bellied Slider). Or if I know that the subspecies is likely to be elevated to species in the near future and it’s clearly identifiable. If the location is near where one subspecies intergrades into another, I’ll leave it at species level. Range maps for subspecies in books or in the scientific literature are often just approximations and may not account for broad areas of intergradation, so relying strictly on location in such cases might not be advisable. If the subspecies is allopatric in relation to others, it’s usually not an issue and using that lower taxon is a no-brainer.
I feel the same, but unfortunately that can lead to observations being knocked back to genus if and when subspecies are split off a separate species. This has happened with a number of Caribbean butterflies, for instance: my main source from the 1970s describes subspecies which are now full species. One is Calisto hysius ssp. batesi – just today, I was requested to verify an ID of Calisto batesi and had to find the subspecies description within the C. hysius species account.