Why do some observations, but not others, contribute to my species list of ichneumonids?

General
1

My 144 observations of Ichneumonidae include postings that have been identified to a variety of levels, from family through tribe to species. When I list my postings of Ichneumonidae, the site says I’ve posted 31 species. That list includes all of the observations that have been identified to species plus some at the genus and tribe level. However, others that are identified only to the genus or tribe level are not included. So, I’m wondering how the site decides which ones to include.

Here’s an example of a few of my observations, showing ID at various levels. Only the first of these shows up on my species list.

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And here’s a picture of a portion of the species list, showing that some observations at the genus or tribe level are included:

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2

The Species page only shows “leaves” or the ends of taxonomic branches that you’ve observed.

So if you had an observation identified as Ichneumonini and none identified to lower ranks within that tribe, that’s the name it would show. But because you have an observation of Vulgichneumon brevicinctor which is within Ichneumonini, it will show that species in the list instead (along with any other species or genera in the tribe). Cryptini doesn’t show in your list because Mesostinus is within that tribe. If Mesostenus doesn’t show in your list then presumably you’ve observed a Mesostenus that’s been identified to species level.

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That makes sense, thanks! I’m writing a small article about my 2025 observations and I was thinking to say something about how many “kinds” of ichneumons I’d seen. I suppose that’s really unanswerable given the challenge in identifying species, but that’s the context my question arose from.

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I think the leaves are a good quick measure of this! At least they give the highest possible lower bound from the taxonomic data alone (except for the possibility of misidentifications of course). In practice you can often do a bit better by scouring through the observations themselves (e.g. such and such observation is currently stuck at ichneumonini but clearly different from the other inchneumonini I’ve seen) but if you want a good conservative estimate I think that’s a reasonable number to go with.

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you could also look at your dynamic life list if you want to see all the nodes in the ichneumonid tree where you have observations.

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