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 specie…

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 …

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.

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 an…

[image] dlgbio: how many “kinds” of ichneumons 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.

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

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

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