Morphospecies codes
Some observant souls may have noticed that some Hong Kong moth observations have been marked up with the observation field "morphospecies code"
What gives?? 🤔
For species with no formal name (i.e. undescribed, or at the least unidentified and possibly undescribed), I am appending what is termed a "morphospecies" id - i.e. "that's what it's being called for now!" - until such time as someonw gets to describe and name the species.
IGMHK is added at the start of the coded field to indicated the name is used in the forthcoming Illustrated Guide to the Moths of Hong Kong
For example, this observation of an unidentified (likely undescribed) tineid - https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/152009622 - is given the morphospecies code
IGMHK "Thisizima sp. D" (Hong Kong) - look down near the bottom of the right data column, under "Observation Fields"
Why sp. D ?
well, the first three Thisizima species (A, B & C) are now accounted for by two species descriptions (A & B are Thisizima fasciara and subceratella, C remains unidentified, but is no longer known as a Thisizima), so sp. D is the next in the sequence.
For some groups, the sequence goes beyond Z, continuing AA, AB, AC etc - the Phycitinae are up to AR, the Lecithoceridae to somthing a little beyond AA. Thankfully, most groups are better known, and there are shorter lists of morphospecies codes within each family !!
I hope that clears the fog of confusion a little.
Further Reading
Sigovini et al., 2016 is a most useful deep dive on the issue of "open nomenclature"
open access at https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/2041-210X.12594
Comments
That's nice idea! Something like molecular OTU
thx, though nothing really new here.
e.g., Moriuti (a Japanese taxonomist who specialised in the Yponomeutoidea) took this to the extreme - a genus called Thecobathra (there is one species in HK) was revised by him, initially using the Greek alphabet to assign morphospecies labels, so Thecobathra alpha, beta, gamma etc...... When he came to publishing species descriptions the morphospecies labels morphed into real species names - he didn't bother dreaming up descriptive names, but stuck with alpha, beta . . . . . . so the one in HK is Thecobathra lambda !
hashtags can serve here to bring all observations of the same coded sp together
indeed they can - the "Morphospecies code" option does just that
How to bring together then all Thisizima sp. D observations?
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?verifiable=any&place_id=any&field:Morphospecies%20code=IGMHK%20%22Thisizima%20sp.%20D%22%20(Hong%20Kong)
Nice, thank you
Thank you, Roger. I have numerous Suriname moth observations that fall into this category, simply because of inadequate available back-up scientific data about Suriname's remarkable biodiversity. Only this year Durand erected a species of which I have an observation from 2019! Up until now I have resigned myself to being obliged to label species queries in my data base as needing further scientific study and so, sadly, relegating the observation to obscurity. Your morphospecies labels will ensure such observations remain 'live'.
"Syngria sp 1 nr druidaria (GvT) Suriname" will be my first attempt at this system.
Once again, many thanks!
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