Wrong records of Millipede species :-( what could we do?

Looking at the map the millipede Ommatoiulus moreleti seems to be cosmopolitan, but it isn’t:

Unfortunately, some of the records have a research degree. I’m sure thay have been approved by superficial similarity.

The same happens with Julus terrestris, not recorded in Spain

Kime y Enghoff (2017) Atlas of European millipedes 2: Order Julida (Class Diplopoda)
European Journal of Taxonomy 346: 1–299:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319370713_Atlas_of_European_millipedes_2_Order_Julida_Class_Diplopoda

So what could we do. I’m not a millipede specialist!

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The Research Grade designation is determined by the Community Taxon, which is based on an algorithm drawn from all IDs the community has added to an observation (click on “About” in the Community Taxon section on any observation page to see a more detailed explanation).

If you don’t believe an ID is correct, you can add your own ID to an observation, and please cite evidence for why you think your ID is more appropriate. That can affect whether or not the observation maintains its Research Grade designation. It’s possible you’ll convince other identifiers that their ID was not correct.

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Ommatoiulus moreleti is not native to United Kingdom and known only from one site in South Wales. However, several records of O. sabulosus, Tachypodoiulus niger, etc have been identified as O. moreleti and even one of my records of O. sabulosus (with orange dorsal stripes clearly visible in photograph) was amended to O. moreleti. Not sure what the solution is.

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Put your id as you see it. Tag the other identifiers when you add the comment as to why, so that the other identifiers are more likely to see the comment. You can also tag in other identifiers that you think might be able to offer expertise.

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There are a few possibilities depending on how well-versed you are in the group and how much effort you want to put into it. Several arthropod groups have had this same issue. I would presume that delving through all species globally wouldn’t be feasible now, though.

If you know it’s not a particular species but aren’t sure which one it is, you can add a disagreeing ID at the level you’re most confident it is (clicking the orange button instead of the green button). I do this a lot with green lacewing observations (“this lacks trait A for that genus, but trait B means it’s at least in this tribe”). For a few taxa, I’ve saved a sort of boilerplate message that I paste into IDs to note the particular identification issues with that group. I also really recommend @-tagging the identifiers (especially when it’s a top identifier) to hopefully prevent misidentification in the future (often with a friendly reminder to be familiar with a species’ range, diagnostic traits, and similar species).

Of course, the more misidentified records there are, the more difficult this can become. These also tend to re-populate, especially when there are few alternatives that Computer Vision suggests.

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If you see a wrong id why not adding the right one? Adding a comment on how to say that it’s not that species is a good thing too. RG obs are not a problem as you always can change that.

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I’ve gone through adding order Julida as an alternative id. to all but one of the UK moreleti records. Does that help? The odd one was too blurred to tell if it was a millipede.

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