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insectamo Sawflies, Horntails, and Wood Wasps (Suborder Symphyta)

about taxonomy Symphyta

Aug. 10, 2019 19:22:18 +0000 insectamo

no longer need

Comments

Dear Colleagues!
In iNat there is a lot of confusion in the names and position of taxa of Symphyta.
Should the hierarchy and names of taxa in iNat be brought into line with BugGuide? What is your opinion?
For example, Pontania viminalis and Euura viminalis are present in different genus.
Or another example: there is tribe Nematini but all the genera that should be in this tribe are here simply in the Nematinae subfamily. And also two other tribes are missing: Cladiini and Pseudodineurini. Do you agree that this needs to be fixed?
The position of many genus in other subfamilies is also not correct. For example, genus Periclista is in tribe Lycaotini.
Many genus are not in their tribes and even are not in their subfamilies, but simply in family Tenthredinidae.
Because of this, it is not possible to indicate tribes in identifications. If I assume genus Eupareophora or Claremontia, but I doubt them, then I have to indicate family Tenthredinidae because genus Eupareophora is in the subfamily Blennocampinae and in tribe Blennocampini, but genus Claremontia is in family Tenthredinidae only. Indication of the tribe would be much more accurate than indicating the family, but to do it is impossible.
And also I think that I should change the names of the taxa that I created, for example, Euura ampla into Amauronematus amplus; Euura pavida into Nematus pavidus... etc. That was my mistake. Since the old taxonomy is more convenient at present, it makes sense to return the old names.
And also I propose replacing the new taxa (Prous et al.) that were created by other curators into old ones according to BugGuide taxonomy.

@susanna_h @skmonckton @rkbagley @entomokot @jonathan142 @k8thegr8 @johnascher @cratzlaff @kwolgemuth @ceiseman @clinnen
I don't know who else to invite. Please do this if you think it is necessary.

Posted by insectamo over 4 years ago

Unless someone has an alternative system, why not use the Bug Guide tribes and their groupings?

But if there is a more up to date DNA classification of tribes, then please get bye-in before proceeding.

But please be cautious about replacing new taxa into old ones - that will require checking if BugGuide is up to date and whether other users agree or not.

(PS: "many genera" - the plural of genus is genera; it is only species that is the same in singular and plural).

Posted by tonyrebelo over 4 years ago

Thanks Tony,
yes, it would be better to be based on the classification of DNA, but the old one, as I understand it, is more convenient here today. Why? skmonckton will explain this better.

Posted by insectamo over 4 years ago

What worries me more is not that the classification is old or new, but that now there are two classifications at the same time here. But there should be only one. No? And also the fact that many genera are not in their place in any case.

Posted by insectamo over 4 years ago

two classifications?: - please elaborate (perhaps the empty taxa should be appropriately synonymized)
Not many genera are in their place?: - again please give examples.

It is easier to evaluate solid cases, than an idea or concept.

Posted by tonyrebelo over 4 years ago

I have already given several examples in the first post.
Go to the Euura genus and to the Pontania genus (Tenthredinidae->Nematinae). You will see a species Euura viminalis and Pontania viminalis ; Euura virilis and Pontania virilis. These are the same species from the new classification and from the old.
I did not check if there are still such doubles, but the problem is different: if the old classification is accepted, then part of the species of Euura must return to their old genera. If a new classification is accepted, then all Pontania must become Euura. The same situation with others genera: Nematus, Amauronematus, Pachynematus...
There should be one option out of two, but not both at once.
As for the genera not in its place, go to family Tenthredinidae and you will see that there are quite a lot of genera that are not located in the tribes and subfamilies, but at the subfamilies level. I think that 17 genera is a lot. They are not even in the subfamilies.
Look at any subfamily of the family Tenthredinidae: Nematinae, Selandriinae, Blennocampinae, Tenthredininae, Allantinae (except Heterarthrinae) and you will see the same situation. Thus, now these genera are randomly mixed, but there are tribes where these genera can be placed correctly.
In addition, some genera are located in the wrong tribes, for example, Periclista in Lycaotini.

Posted by insectamo over 4 years ago

14 genera in the Argidae family are located at the subfamily level.
Also 2 genera in the family Diprionidae.
Also, the genera Megalodon and Quemocuomegalodon are not Symphyta. (Megalodontoidea (now Pamphilioidea) -> Megalodontidae)

Posted by insectamo over 4 years ago

ECatSym is the global taxonomic database for sawflies, and both BugGuide and iNaturalist should be following this. In my opinion, editors/curators who are motivated to do so should feel free to go ahead and make the needed changes. If there are any proposed deviations from that database, those should be discussed.

Posted by ceiseman over 4 years ago

Thanks Charley.
What about Nematinae (Prous et al.)?

Posted by insectamo over 4 years ago

ECatSym follows Prous et al., so I think we should too. Because BugGuide is dedicated to North American fauna and Dave Smith has been actively involved there, we have deferred to his wishes regarding keeping Pontania and Phyllocolpa (and maybe others?) as distinct genera. I am no expert, but I agree with him that it is a shame to hide these distinct entities under the name Euura, and I think at iNat they should at least be retained as informal groupings within Euura (or maybe subgenera? but I don't know if there is any precedent for this). I would be interested in @skmonckton 's input on the Nematinae situation; I don't know if anyone else here has relevant expertise to comment on this, but if so I'd like to hear from them too!

Posted by ceiseman over 4 years ago

All species of Amauronematus, Pachynematus, Phyllocolpa, Pikonema, Pontania and most of all of Nematus become Euura spp.

Craesus spp. -> Nematus spp.

A subgenus can be added. For example, like this (only the first letter becomes small in the name of the subgenus)
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/921876-Euura-(kontuniemiana)-ribesii
and the link to the species does not work correctly ... maybe I'm doing something wrong ...

But the trouble is that too many species are still not assigned to a subgenus.

@skmonckton your opinion please

Posted by insectamo over 4 years ago

I've just recently grafted a number of genera (Argidae in particular should look a lot better grafted). Regrettably, more obscure hymenopteran taxa such as this tend to remain rather ungrafted and under-curated. Occasionally, new names are added, but the import system often won't graft below family (that has to be done manually and often isn't).

Curating Symphyta likely will include several rounds as each really builds upon another step. This is generally my preferred order as it gives easier chunks to work with, but it isn't anything prescribed.
First is simply grafting what we have already down to the genus level. This gives us an organized system to work with and will help prevent duplicates from being added to different-level taxa. I generally don't go down as far as subgenus at first as I'm mainly trying to sort existing taxa instead of adding taxa. I sometimes add missing higher taxa at this point so I don't have to keep alternating what I'm doing later.
• Second is dealing with synonymized taxa. This will involve a series of taxon changes (most will be at the species level - some people may prefer to make a full list of changes before moving forward while others may end up just tackling things as they come up). Transitioning older genera into subgenera can also be done here as many may will need a new taxon page.
Third is adding missing taxa. The reason I tend to keep this last is just to prevent redundancies. This can also include adding new subgeneric sorting if not added earlier.

As far as subgenera, species in iNat never include subgenus in parentheses as this breaks most links going to that page. I really wish we could, but the site's syntax just doesn't allow it (it's like trying to use a colon in a filename). So I've gone ahead and dropped Euura (kontuniemiana) ribesii 921876 for this reason and replaced it with the appropriate format.

Posted by jonathan142 over 4 years ago

Thanks Jonathan,
Yes, Argidae looks much better now! Only genus Hemidianeura still has the old name. Now it is mainly genus Ptenos and some others. For example, Hemidianeura leucopoda -> Ptenos leucopodus. I am ashamed that I still do not know much about the operation of the site and the import system, but, as I understand it, checking each taxon is necessary, as well as making corrections manually according to https://www.sdei.de/ecatsym/ or pdf World Catalog of Symphyta (Hymenoptera), 2010. (depends on which classification option will be adopted here). What additional sources do you use for this?

I understood your working method and also I understood about adding subgenera now. Unfortunately, the names of the species will be displayed in the observations is not informative enough, but at least the species will be correctly located in the taxon tree. And of course, I will delete this taxon a little later (it already exists as Nematus ribesii), I created it only to understand working with subgenera.

However, ECatSym does not indicate a subgenera now. How, in this case, a huge number of Euura species (which belonged to different genera before) should be divided if a new classification is adopted? Is it possible to use the names of subgenera from World Catalog of Symphyta (Hymenoptera), 2010?

Posted by insectamo over 4 years ago

One useful point is that taxon changes can be drafted without being applied so they can be checked over. This way you can double-check your work before it really goes live. There are also a few tricks I've found when transitioning the members of an old genus into a subgenus of another genus that can help save some time.

I tend to like using subgenera mainly as it acts as the closest to perfect compromise between old and new schemes - that is, they're still divided as in older schemes but use the combination of the newer scheme. So I think it would be perfectly fine to use ECatSym (2018) for our primary taxonomy while deferring to Taeger et al. (2010) for the likes of subgenera and any finer taxa not included in ECatSym.

Before we get too far, this may be a good taxonomic group for seeing about getting a Taxonomic Working Group set up (that would allow us to more directly tie our taxonomy to the framework of ECatSym). That would also help document when taxa are brought in from Taeger et al. (2010) or other deviations from ECatSym. I've been hoping to be able to get a few set up, with taxon curators, for a few groups of hymenoptera that have equivalents to world catalogues, especially when the valid name may not be the one with the most hits on Google (such as recent work with campsomerine species of scoliid wasp).

Posted by jonathan142 over 4 years ago

Sorry for the delay in commenting, everyone - I've been away at a demanding workshop and am now currently visiting at the Smithsonian. I was actually just talking to Dave Smith about the issue of genera in Nematinae on Monday: they remain more-or-less diagnosable under the former classification (at least in North America) and for that reason I agree with him that it's most practical to continue using that classification until such time as each genus can be reviewed in closer detail. The real issue is that these morphologically distinct "genera" of Nematinae seem to be nested within the three large genera Euura, Nematus, and Pristiphora - at least according to molecular evidence. Now, seeing as neither BugGuide nor iNaturalist provide for DNA observations to be submitted (!), and seeing further that it is frequently impossible to ID Nematinae to species from a photograph, it seems much more useful to be able to sort them according to their former genera (e.g. Pontania, Phyllocolpa, Amauronematus, Pachynematus, Pristola, Melastola, etc....) than to lump them into three large genera. In practical terms I'm not sure how much of a difference it will make, as it is often difficult to even get them to genus from a photo (except for commonly-encountered species with well-attested host plant associations), and even so any expert likely to rely on these observations should be well aware of these issues. Otherwise, I agree with Charley that ECatSym is the way to go. Perhaps the best thing to do is put species-level identification into the Prous et al. (2014) genera (e.g. Euura viminalis) to remove any ambiguity at that level, while accommodating the technically-synonymous genera for identifications to the genus level.

Regarding Taeger et al. (2010) "deviating" from ECatSym: in fact ECatSym is the continuously updated, online version of the 2010 catalogue. At least for Nematinae I would not trust the subgenera listed in Taeger et al. (2010) because subsequent work suggests they are not stable (e.g. see Prous et al. 2017 who instead use species groups for Pristiphora). I'm currently working on North American Pristiphora and hope to shed some more light on the situation, but for the moment it's looking likely that species groups are as good as we'll get. I think the same must be true for other speciose genera, such as Empria, for which Marko has used species groups rather than subgenera (e.g. Prous et al. 2011, Liston et al. 2019). For that reason I wouldn't recommend using them.

Finally, I don't believe I realized until now that Taeger et al. have seemingly dispensed with tribal classifications, which probably indicates that these are not stable either. Again, I can only really speak for Nematinae (the existing tribal classification has been obviously wrong for some time now, and should not be used), but tribes do seem to be useful in other subfamilies, e.g. Allantinae, Blennocampinae. I'm just not sure how well-supported they are, or for that matter, what classification one would even use to assign genera to tribes. But, otherwise I would recommend sticking to ECatSym as much as possible. (BugGuide should do so as well, though I believe Dolerinae is treated as a separate subfamily there at Dave Smith's request; I'll have to ask him about that while I'm here!)

Cheers,
Spencer

Posted by skmonckton over 4 years ago

Thanks Spencer,
Let us know about the results of the discussion of all these issues.

And no matter what classification will accepted in iNat, I am ready to participate in this work in any case.

Posted by insectamo over 4 years ago

Regarding Dolerinae: Dave Smith agrees that Benson's classification (i.e. under Selandriinae as Dolerini) is probably the better way. He retains the subfamily in the collection simply because it's easier/what he's used to. Also worth noting: while they're clearly a distinct lineage from other Selandriinae (Malm & Nyman 2015) it's possible to largely sidestep a tribal classification for the subfamily because virtually all Dolerini belong in the same genus (a single species of Prionourgus is known from Southern California, and only from very few specimens).

Cheers,
Spencer

Posted by skmonckton over 4 years ago

Thanks for this information!
It remains to make a decision regarding subgenera, tribes ... and choose a classification :)

Posted by insectamo over 4 years ago

I agree with Spencer's suggestions, which essentially amount to following ECatSym.
I suggest that we give the genera that Prous et al. lumped under Euura the rank of "sections," to clarify that they are not recognized as subgenera, while also allowing all images of Pontania, Phyllocolpa etc. to be grouped together, whether identified to species or not.
Sounds like we should not recognize tribes within Nematinae, but otherwise can follow what BugGuide does for tribes (with the exception that Dolerinae should be Dolerini within Selandriinae; I asked the site admin to make this change a month ago, but it hasn't been fixed yet).

Posted by ceiseman over 4 years ago

Charley, and also the genus Ceratulus, should be in the tribe Ceratulini, according to Nearctic sawflies, Blennocampinae, 1969.

Posted by insectamo over 4 years ago

The BugGuide page for Ceratulus says "formerly" in Ceratulini: https://bugguide.net/node/view/443680
I don't know what that is based on (Vassili Belov would be the one to ask), but hopefully there is a reference <50 years old to guide our placement of that genus.

Posted by ceiseman over 4 years ago

In the list discussed by Vassili Belov and Dave Smith (Vassili sent me this list), genus Ceratulus is also included in tribe Ceratulini, as in the book "American Insects: A Handbook of the Insects of America North of Mexico".
I do not know if there was any other information after that.
Apparently, it’s better to check with Dave Smith.

Posted by insectamo over 4 years ago

Ah, I found where the change was made: http://www.zoores.ac.cn/EN/Y1996/V17/I2/117
I will add that reference to the BugGuide page.

Posted by ceiseman over 4 years ago

Actually it was already noted here: https://bugguide.net/node/view/476742

Posted by ceiseman over 4 years ago

Thank you very much!
And sorry to bother you.

Posted by insectamo over 4 years ago

Hello all, sorry to bother you, but this flag has been left unresolved for a year, and I'm interested in the discussion and getting to a resolution. Has a decision been made?

Posted by zdanko about 3 years ago

Hello Zachary,
there are two opposing opinions here.
(and the third option is to leave everything unchanged).
No decision has been made.
But I am ready to follow any decision.

Posted by insectamo about 3 years ago

It looks like for the time being we are going with the third option ?

Posted by tonyrebelo about 3 years ago

It seems that yes.
What do the rest of the members think?
Closing the discussion and removing the flag?

Posted by insectamo about 3 years ago

It seems to me there is no harm in following the subfamilies and tribes used on BugGuide, even if tribes have been abandoned by ECatSym (note that BugGuide how has Dolerini within Selandriinae, so I think the subfamily arrangements of the two websites are in agreement). Regarding the genera of Nematinae, I suggested above treating the old genera as "sections" within the genera recognized by ECatSym and Prous et al. No one has responded to that [and I keep getting yelled at by other curators for using Griffiths' "sections" of the fly genus Pegomya, because apparently sections are only allowed for plants, and the fact that these sections exist in entomological publications hasn't convinced anyone otherwise], but we have established that @insectamo, @skmonckton, and I all prefer to keep using the old genera in some form rather than lumping everything under Euura. I suppose an alternative to my previous suggestion would be to retain the old genera as genera but select Euura as the "parent" taxon for these species?

Posted by ceiseman about 3 years ago

I apologize that I did not answer about the sections. I was inattentive.
But in the tree structure, the parent taxon for the genus is the tribe.
What ̶n̶a̶m̶e̶ rank of the parent taxon do you suggest?

Posted by insectamo about 3 years ago

To illustrate what I mean, I just edited Pontania californica so that the "parent" is Euura instead of Pontania. It still displays as Pontania californica, but within the genus Euura: https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/84196-Pontania-californica

Posted by ceiseman about 3 years ago

I would regard that as unacceptable. And if I was doing a curation of the group, I would change them without bothering to ask anyone. It is simply wrong and bad structure.
However, the use of subgenera, sections and subsections, I would not query, but treat at face value (esp. if explained or justified in deviations). This is especially useful in cases where morphologically good genera that are largely monophyletic have been sunk without due attention to subgeneric classification, which seems to happen far too often.

The correct way to handle these ambiguities is via synonyms.

Posted by tonyrebelo about 3 years ago

Tony, the problem here is that the taxa in question have not been formally proposed as subgenera or anything else, simply synonymized under a single genus that now includes 25% of all described North American sawflies (I don't know what the proportion is elsewhere in the world). It isn't acceptable for us to designate them as subgenera or any other formal groupings that haven't been used in the literature, and iNaturalist doesn't allow for the creation of informal "no taxon" groupings the way BugGuide does. My proposed solution recognizes the recent synonymy while also retaining the smaller groups that are still meaningful and identifiable (and are still being used by some sawfly workers).

Maybe you would find Spencer's suggestion more agreeable: "Perhaps the best thing to do is put species-level identification into the Prous et al. (2014) genera (e.g. Euura viminalis) to remove any ambiguity at that level, while accommodating the technically-synonymous genera for identifications to the genus level." The nice thing about mine is that it allows, say, former Pontania species to still be nested within the genus Pontania, rather than having the old genera be treated in a separate place, which obscures how the species relate to them.

Posted by ceiseman about 3 years ago

I would rather bend a few rules on iNaturalist and use the sections for this, than add names that will be duplicated under the new Genera based on the literature and create a mess that needs to be continually updated.

Posted by tonyrebelo about 3 years ago

Well, I'm okay with that solution (and it was my original suggestion). My only concern is that there are a few sticklers who go around "fixing" things like that without consulting anyone.

Posted by ceiseman about 3 years ago

They do that anyway! If you add a deviation with explanation it would be unacceptable for them to do so ...

Posted by tonyrebelo about 3 years ago

Unacceptable, yes. Able to be stopped, not necessarily.

Posted by zdanko about 3 years ago

I am using the Noblecourt classification for European species.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/323684444_Liste_systematique_des_Hymenopteres_Symphytes_de_France_2018_Hymenoptera_Symphyta
Although it is not perfect and controversial, it at least has an ordered structure (sometimes it does not correspond to ECatSym).
American species are absent there. I don't know how to solve this problem.
So I'm just waiting for your decision.

Posted by insectamo about 3 years ago

I like Charley's suggestion, so long as iNaturalist and its curators are comfortable with recognizing informal "sections" for these groups (I admit I'm one of the people who can't see section and not think of plants, but I can get over it!). It does seem to me the most elegant solution for this complex of problems.

I should also take the opportunity to point out here that I'm a practicing hypocrite, because I have started identifying some observations of Euura/Nematus/Pristiphora as Nematini (despite saying above that tribes of Nematinae should not be used...). I guess that just goes to show I'm generally in favour of using the more practical classification scheme over the correct one!

Posted by skmonckton about 3 years ago

@symphyta messaged me curious about what Symphyta taxonomic reference iNat is following and also what names are currently in iNat. I put the latter together here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1v-nVz8t_sQXo3QVw9wga0PaORRm3eA4KZZY6WCH2OHU/edit?usp=sharing
As for what taxonomic reference iNat is following - I guess thats what this thread is about?

Posted by loarie over 2 years ago

I see 8 taxa are varieties. I thought varieties had been dropped in the zoological code and only subspecies are in use.
Or is this some legacy that still needs to be cleared up?

Posted by tonyrebelo over 2 years ago

@loarie Thanks for the reference to this thread and the excel list. I will think about the matter over the next few days and comment. I'll look at the earlier messages in peace, a quick shot won't do too much good. I believe that there are solutions that everyone can live with. Nothing is perfect, not even iNaturalist ;-).

Posted by symphyta over 2 years ago

@insectamo and @symphyta - any more updates on this. @symphyta is proposing we adopt ECatSym as a reference for Symphyta - is there support for this?

Posted by loarie over 2 years ago

I certainly support it. I haven't thoroughly re-read this entire thread, but I don't think anyone has suggested we shouldn't follow ECatSym--only that it is useful to retain some additional informal groupings (e.g. Pontania, Phyllocolpa, and maybe some tribes) that are not recognized by ECatSym.

Posted by ceiseman over 2 years ago

My intention is to include the synonymous combinations used by Lacourt (2020, Western Palaearctic species) wherever this is useful. This way the the old genera may be found easily. There are not only the Nematinae, but also Tenthredininae are looking different in many respects. You are right that in ECatSym tribes are missing. But they are included in the "backbone" file I gave to iNat.

Posted by symphyta over 2 years ago

thoughts @insectamo?

Posted by loarie over 2 years ago

I support following to ECatSym.
For this, the "backbone" must be brought in line with ECatSym (with the addition of tribes and other things mentioned above) and serve as a guideline for the work of curators and, of course, an information base for all participants.
@symphyta, if you need help working on the list, then I am ready to help, as far as my ability as an amateur allows it.
If my help is not needed, then I just wait for this list to be ready :)

Posted by insectamo over 2 years ago

I support it as well. Thank you Andreas for contributing this solution!

Posted by skmonckton over 2 years ago

While we await the list of species, I would like to discuss another problem. Perhaps this is not a very good place for this, but I do not know any other.
To determine the larvae of sawflies, it is very important to know the plant on which the larva was feeding at the time of capture.
However, very often the authors do not indicate these data. Sometimes they do not know the species/genus of plant, but sometimes they do, but they forget to mention it.
In my opinion, it would be useful to make the plant field mandatory. In the worst case, the author might write "don't know".
That is, an empty field "host plant" should not allow the observation load to be completed.
This would help save time and hassle for those involved in the definition.

What is your opinion?

Posted by insectamo about 2 years ago

As far as I can see, about 80 sawfly species need to be given new name combinations in iNat. In addition, there are changes to the higher-level categories. This change is probably quite time-consuming. However, I cannot comment on the technology, as ECatSym is based on a differently organised database.
I think Alexander's suggestion regarding food plants makes sense, especially since sawflies are often quite specialised.

Posted by symphyta about 2 years ago

I agree that requiring host plant information would be nice, but I suspect it isn't possible to require it since the host ID field only appears when you submit observations to projects that use it. You could try asking about it on the forum though (https://forum.inaturalist.org/).

Posted by ceiseman about 2 years ago

Thanks! It looks like the forum requires studying past topics, of which there are too many ...
probably will have to be delayed...

So can we now start replacing the species names according to ECatSym, including non-European species, or should we wait for Andreas to complete the list (with tribes, subgenera ect.) ?
Althow it is not clear to me how to deal with the huge number of "Nematus" IDs in any case.

And why isn't Andreas still a curator?

Posted by insectamo about 2 years ago

I applied to become curator about three weeks ago. I thought that this decision takes sometime.

Posted by symphyta about 2 years ago

@loarie three weeks is a long time, isn't it?
Maybe something is wrong?

Posted by insectamo about 2 years ago

I'm just coming across this years later and have a few questions and suggestions. What if anything has been implemented so far? Using subsections is reasonable to discuss but seems unideal for any Hymenoptera. It's understood to refer to non-animals. Complexes which are informal groupings even in academic taxonomy would be better. Or subgenera potentially could be used arbitrarily, where a notice flag is added to each stating it isn't a formal subgenus, although complexes would be easier.

General notes about discussing new and complex classifications. BugGuide isn't updated for many taxa, and is in some ways less so than iNat currently. Instead of using a single authority source like any website, what really also matters for these complex cases is determining what sources they use (e.g. articles, authors). If websites are used without checking that, the result could be implementing invalid or erroneous changes. The expected accuracy and stability of classifications is also important, since highly unstable or contested classifications are best to wait on to avoid having to make numerous future taxon changes (and repeatedly alter IDs).

A related and general note for Hymenoptera curation requests. Guidelines say: "if Authority A says Vulpes vulpes is accepted, but there's a new paper that says we should call the species Supervulpes vulpes and somehow [it] got added..., it would be ok to make a swap from Supervulpes vulpes to Vulpes vulpes, because Authority A says that's the current name." The above is often inaccurate and would cause many problems if followed literally in complex Hymenoptera cases. For example, no one web or print source is completely updated for bees and wasps, so we have to use multiple and discuss them in many cases.

Likewise, as an aside (given Hymenoptera common name debates), the guideline "If you find names that don't meet these criteria, e.g. 10 taxa named "snail," please delete them without mercy" is also problematic, since many users have acted as if this means if they themselves think any common name is invalid they should delete any without asking/notifying others. Often users don't check or don't know the sources to check, so it's best to create flag discussion for name (or contested taxon) changes. For that reason, I suggest both those guidelines sections be edited.

As for the current proposal, I haven't studied it in detail, and want to learn what's been implemented first. I can potentially help implement parts of it if all are in agreement.

Posted by bdagley about 1 year ago

I opened this discussion because at that time there were several parallel variants (at least more than one) of the classification. As far as I can see this problem has now been fixed.
I cannot discuss the validity of subsections, subgenera, etc., as I am not an expert in taxonomy.
However, in any case, if the unresolved flag is embarrassing, and also since the main problem is solved and since I was the initiator of this discussion, then I'm ready to close this discussion and flag if the rest of the participants do not mind.

Posted by insectamo about 1 year ago

It's not embarrassing, and could stay open if there's any more curation to do? Or can close if it's completely done.

Posted by bdagley about 1 year ago

Or it can be closed as largely done, and discussion can still continue for any fine tuning.

Posted by tonyrebelo about 1 year ago

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