Taxonomic Swap 142580
(Committed on 2024-04-18)
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Comments
I am not sure - although more recent publications have treated the two as distinct genera, both https://butterfliesofamerica.com/L/Nymphalidae.htm and https://butterfliesofamerica.com/US-Can-Cat.htm treat all species as Dione. I am waiting to see whether people adopt Dione, or prefer to keep Agraulis. I see that https://www.butterfliesandmoths.org/species/Agraulis-vanillae has not updated the taxonomy. I honestly don't know what to advise, it's such a disruptive change and it's not clear that there is a consensus yet.
My reading of the referenced https://www.inaturalist.org/flags/568513 is that 1. We are sticking to Dione for now and 2. We're still following Butterflies of America lists. Since under 10 observations were affected, it's by no means a disruptive change in itself.
The disruptiveness of the change is one thing, but the correctness is the bigger issue, which is still up in the air. Yes, BoA chooses to call everything Dione but it's unclear if that's what they think is right or if it's because they too are unsure of what to do after seeing the Penz paper and have not made any changes to their site yet. Even then the disruptiveness would go beyond lucina as it would eventually affect all the other taxa which the Penz paper treats as being in Agraulis
The position on BoA is an uneasy post-Penz consensus, ie not a matter of not having been updated yet. But whether that will change with forthcoming opinions/publications is not clear. And yes @atronox is right, lucina is a minor issue but the thousands of other ‘Agraulis’ records are not. Still not sure, might be better to give it another year or two, or seek wider consensus. I would say that iNat curators should also be able to decide on the most user-friendly classification, assuming it is a potentially valid one, in this case there are clearly two competing valid classifications.
@kwillmott Hi Keith, has there been a consensus reached yet regarding this group? The latest revision still proposes that this and others including vanillae should be retained in Agraulis which is kept separate from Dione
Also see the wider discussion here: https://www.inaturalist.org/flags/568513
cc @kitty12