Guide to the DiscoverLife Andrena key

I have spent weeks of my life in the DiscoverLife Andrena key. It is a great resource but far short of a slam dunk for ID of the 521 Andrena species in the guide. One of the limitations is the lag in scoring. Ideally, each species in the key is associated with trait conditions. Species X has long fovea, a ridged pygidial plate, etc, for dozens of traits. But for rarer taxa, these traits are unrecorded, or scored for a wide range. E.g., species Y has moderate OR long OR very long fovea. This leads to many false positives. The solution is for a highly qualified taxonomist with a vast collection to spend months ironing this out. Or more likely, to chip away at it as resources are available.

A second limitation is the user's level of knowledge about how traits are defined. I can help with this by adding explanatory trait images to the DL key. But these images are small, and often insufficient to get the user to a place of confidence when deciding on trait conditions.

So I created a page: Andrena deconstructed: A photo guide to the characters of the DiscoverLife Andrena key

Anatomy discussed:

Posted on December 28, 2022 12:33 AM by cappaert