I often get lazy and just write “[…] does not occur here” or “[…] is a species from […]”, especially as I don’t know whether anyone is going to ever read the comment.
Also, it can get very complicated to describe the exact morphological differences. For example: Harmonia axyridis f. conspicua observations in Europe misidentified as Coelophoria saucia I cannot think of a way to convey the difference other than essentially saying “it looks slightly different”.
Or, another example: I think on a H. axyridis observation IDed as Adalia decempunctata in the US I once left a comment along the lines of “if you imagine a line through the row of three spots on each elytron, the line is too curved to be Adalia decempunctata”. I do not know how helpful that comment was to anyone. It almost confused myself… Haha
On some species it’s just impossible to ID that far if the location is off, and personally, I’d rather have a more accurate, but less precise life-list, than a very-precise, but over-confident one.
For example, I do not know morphological differences between the two flat-footed flies Polyporivora ornata (European), and P. polypori (North-American). Due to their life cycle, I believe it is unlikely for them to be introduced in each other’s region, so I’m confident in IDing these based on location.
However, there is one odd observation of a fly that looks exactly like these two in Taiwan. IDing this as either P. ornata or P. polypori would be a mistake. Has it been introduced from Europe? From the US or Canada? Perhaps it is a different (undescribed?) species? Who knows…
So I agree with this: