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Post by jonathan on Jan 24, 2011 12:11:25 GMT -8
Dear fellow collectors. Have you ever tried to identify a specimen and one literature says it's a subspecies and another promotes it to species level? Recently it has happened to me quite often and got so frustrated that I have decided that I will be the one who will classify my own collection and despite checking what the others have to say, I take the ultimate decision irrespective of all literature. For example I had, I am, and I will keep on classifying Satyridae as Satyridae and I will never use the word Satyrini. How can someone say that Satyridae are a subfamily of the Nymphalidae when all evidence shows the contrary (vein structure, life cycle, habitats, colours, larval development, non-migratory, genital structure, wing pattern, and chromosome numbers)?? Most probably there is more in common beween primates and homo sapiens than between Satyridae & Nymphaliade! My gut feeling is that nowadays it's becoming fashionable to name a species for oneself...hence the infinite changes from one level to another. My questions to you are: 1. How do you classify your specimens, based on literature, your opinion, or a mix of both like I do? 2. Do you change your specimen labels when something new comes out? 3. Do you believe everything the authors in scientific papers have to say? 4. What is a subspecies for you? 5. What do you think about this topic? Do you get confused too like myself? Any replies/comments would be greatly appreciated. Hope I'm not the only one who gets frustrated with such non-sense changes. I think that if Linnaeus or Rotschild were alive, they would really make a laugh out of modern scientists who should be better equipped than these 2 late gentlemen. Jonathan
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Post by nomihoudai on Jan 24, 2011 13:05:56 GMT -8
Dear fellow specimen. Have you ever been tried to be identified as a species and one literature says you are a subspecies and another promotes you to species level? Recently it has happened to me quite often and got so frustrated that I have decided that I will be the one who will stop letting me being classified, despite checking what the others have to say, I take the ultimate decision irrespective of all taxonomy. For example some people will keep on classifying Satyridae as Satyridae and some people use the word Satyrini. The former humans argue: how can someone say that Satyridae are a subfamily of the Nymphalidae when all evidence shows the contrary (vein structure, life cycle, habitats, colours, larval development, non-migratory, genital structure, wing pattern, and chromosome numbers)?? The latter humans argue: just look at their dna, they most be monophyletic! How can this happen in a scientific way which should be an objective observation of the living world ? My gut feeling is that nowadays it's becoming fashionable to name a species for oneself...hence the infinite changes from one level to another. My questions to you are: 1. How can you make science using subjective methods ? 2. Do you change your specimen labels when something new comes out? 3. Do you believe everything the authors in scientific papers have to say? 4. What is a subspecies for you? 5. What do you think about this topic? Do you get confused too like myself? ================================================ Dear Jonathan, I find this topic great! I would even say already one of the best I have seen in my time on insectnet. I started my reply in a very subtle way to rewrite your post. This was not in the intention to make fun of you, anger you or made fun of your opinions, but to introduce my point of view on the topic in a humorous way and show how silly taxonomy must look when seen from the specimens view. I hope you got the joke and could at least laugh I share the problems you have brought up here and I will already go a little further. I have lost faith in the current way of classifying and describing "a species"... whatever one understands under that term... The circular movements of naming the populations of life in our world have reached an unbearable level. Two examples of only the last month : First, a new DNA study now recognises Erebiidae, Noctuidae, Eutheliidae, and Nolidae as only families in the Noctuoidea...well, nice ? Second: When reading books on microlepidoptera I came across a comment that Diakonoff wrote describing the situation in the early days of microlepidoptology, apparently some authors have given such bad describtions that it was unable to associate them with species and they simply got "forgotten", ... others now believed to have found out what they ment and resurrected the old names, and still other people denied that again ... Taxonomy is on the edge between science and philately, wether you do recognise that or not. The changes between names, back and forth,...and back and forth... have been excused under the fact of science being able to change. Yes science does change when new evidence is found, but it was not designed to bite itself in the tail and entail in a circular reasoning. I guess a lot of people will not agree with my words written above, and sure many will ask what is your solution, well I must say I have none. The topic is really mind bogling. Everybody does recognize a cow as a cow, a sheep as distinct and a cat even being something else. Another one is insects, and so on, then the genera where most of them look stable. Everybody recognises a Lycaena from a Polyommatus... , Lycaena dispar and Lycaena phlaeas, ...still ok,... but now ! Lycaena eberti, Lycaena aditya, Lycaena solskyi, Lycaena alpherakii etc. etc. I really have no solution ... Taking the topic further one reason of the desperate situation may be the collectors themselves. Have you ever bought a book where no new sp. was in it at all ? While I would be happy just to have a book series that resumes known knowledge a lot of people ask for new stuff, and a lot of people need a new sp. as a trigger to want a book. I did not see that, and it is not my idea or observation what I tell you here. It was the observation of a well known publisher that I could hear talking while on an insectfair, he said: Our papers rely on having new species to show the public, who will buy them otherwise ? ... So maybe we are ourselves at the cause of the current situation.
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Post by Chris Grinter on Jan 24, 2011 14:00:33 GMT -8
I hear a whole lot of pessimism and distain for the scientific process here guys. So here is my two cents.
You are right Nomihoudai that our naming systems are based on soft science; after all species are artificial constructs. In the process of figuring out what is what we use science to best advise these decisions, however can't ever fully achieve the truth. These decisions are made by current experts who make judgement calls while looking at the evidence. Since there is no right or wrong answer (usually) not all experts will agree. The best thing to do is to let time move on and see what the consensus is and if it holds up. The recent large scale changes in the Noctuidae make great sense when you look at the molecular evidence. Of course, the whole process of naming things to coincide with molecular work is in and of itself a modern theory to make names more informative. It is no more "correct" than the original naming system of pure similarity (bats should be classified closer to birds since they fly... but modern thinking tells us that we should classify them in a more informative way that conveys information about their evolution). And so the taxonomic ball rolls on.
Yes, sometimes bad science is done, especially when it comes to popular groups of butterflies. Perhaps because they are so desirable you run into less qualified individuals tossing their hats into the ring and making a mess of things. Other times you can have legitimate mistakes made, science is a self correcting process. So in the end what happens is that every expert makes the best argument they can and fight it out over time.
The names will always change! It's a symptom of taxonomy. Every new method will offer a different angle on the data and rearrangements will never stop being made. It might come across as circular, but we end up with a better system in time.
As far as subspecies - I give little credence to them. The amount of time and effort being put into describing subspecies is a bit absurd, especially when it comes to butterflies. I believe that subspecies exist, and that one species over distance will show variation that we can call different names. Nothing wrong with that. But pretending like subspecies are meaningful taxonomic units or just as meaningful as full species is crazy. The fact is they don't live in isolation and they hybridize and blend into the other "subspecies" surrounding them ALL the time. I don't think subspecies are the cutting edge of taxonomy. A lot of subspecies are just meaningless color patterns shifts - sometimes based on the size of a tiny black dot growing darker. Fine. But a lot of names are smacked on little butterflies and hell is raised to protect it from extinction. In the process we lose sight of protecting the habitat and every animal within it.
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Post by jonathan on Jan 24, 2011 23:30:05 GMT -8
Hi Chris and Nomihoudai. Thanks a lot for your replies. I'm glad that I'm not the only one who have the same perplexities on the subject. Just to complicate a little bit the matter, recently I've been in contact with Mr. Michael Fibiger (one of the authors of the famous NOCTUIDAE EUROPAEAE series and he confirmed that Lymantiinae and Arctiinae shall now be classified under Noctuidae. Check out Volume 13. Try to understand that?!? Why not Lasiocampinae as well I might ask? Mind you people, it's not that I am trying to lack respect to the scientific community...far away from it! I have great respect towards people who spend their lives to bring to life new species/subspecies to science and their respective habitats and life cycles. As Chris rightly said and quoting A. Hausmann too " There is no protection of a species without the protection of its habitat." - Hausmann, A., 2001. The Geometrid Moths of Europe 1: 1-282 pp.26 Yes, eventually that's what happens! When I was in Switzerland in 2006 I've seen various smashed butterflies on the road due to car collisions, amongst which Parnassius apollo, a CITES 1 species. So why all the fuss of protecting it when I can kill it whilst driving?? Anyway, that's another topic and I don't want to comment on this regard. Well people. It's good to know that there are wise people out there who just don't accept whatever it is said without questioning. I perfectly agree with your last 2 sentences Nomihoudai. In fact, if one had to stop, think and analyse, these issues happen only with the most desirable species by collectors (Ornithoptera, Troides, Morpho, Papilio, Agrias, and most of all butterfly genera) but very rare on moths (except for Sphingidae & Saturniidae). How come is that? There are people who study moths too but we still don't get all these subspecies/species and when we get them, distinction is quite straightforward normally based on location or superficial identification. Yes, we might be bringing this on ourselves, but the final decision rests on us. Any more views would be greatly appreciated.
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Post by nomihoudai on Jan 25, 2011 6:55:01 GMT -8
Seems we are not the only ones thinking about an outdated approach to nomeclature and taxonomy. I had searched deeper into the topic today and found interesting news ( at least news for me ) on the ICZN page, www.mapress.com/zootaxa/list/2008/zt01950.html , most interesting in my eyes is the article about www.zoobank.org , I can just hope this project will help to bring stability and not bring more confusion again. ...and by the way, the problems with new taxa all the time not only are in Ornithoptera etc., I once got told that people coming from one country ( I will not tell it now as it does not matter ) started to name microleps as soon as it gets found on a new hostplant as they only want one taxon per hostplant ...
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Post by kingha on Jan 26, 2011 19:17:00 GMT -8
for species and subspecies I follow Howe 1975
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Post by wollastoni on Jan 27, 2011 0:47:45 GMT -8
What about the new European nomenclatura that is now used in all major European museum...
Some things are very strange like Aglais io...
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Post by nomihoudai on Jan 27, 2011 1:34:02 GMT -8
Kingha could you please refer further to a paper if there is one ? I would like to read it and googled Howe 1975 and found this : scitation.aip.org/getabs/servlet/GetabsServlet?prog=normal&id=JASMAN000103000005002806000001&idtype=cvips&gifs=yes&bypassSSO=1 ... but I do not understand how Green's function and solid body acoustics can help anyone getting more insight into ssp. definition. @ Olivier, well, maybe someone else makes a new DNA study, taking other factors into accoun he sees as important and taking other specimen and gets a new tree, the above paper that made this change had also a few trees in it I've read a few papers in the online Journal Zootaxa recently about this very topic and even there they agree that taxonomy is on the hard edge on being even a science, but no one comes up with a great solution to solve it. The topic may also become even more confusing as we won't only have the ICZN in the future but something called PhyloCode will be done soon, started of being developped by HArvard university in 1998. I must have misread it, or at least, I cannot see how this PhyloCode would be possible with any entomolgical taxonomy, for vertebrates it may be fine due to the small number of species but I think not for the invertebrates again. Here's the wiki about: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phylocode
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Post by wingedwishes on Jan 27, 2011 4:47:55 GMT -8
The business is also muddied by a dishonest situation. Companies will sell a known species with ssp. or f. or even wrong locality after it to sell more of them. If you as a collector, have a P. memnon from one island and one is listed (incorrectly) as a ssp. from another island, you may be tricked into buying it even though you already have it (and pay more for it since no one else has it). This happens in the pet trade all the time. For example these common names have all been used for the same fish: Red tail guppy, flame tail guppy, rust tail guppy, red delta guppy, blood tail guppy.
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Post by Chris Grinter on Jan 27, 2011 8:56:46 GMT -8
I don't think there is any worry about phylo-code. I heard a lot about this years ago but it's pretty much died down. The application of these new rules to vastly unknown organisms like insects is pretty much impossible, and would never, ever be followed. Our naming system isn't going anywhere!
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Post by wollastoni on Jan 27, 2011 9:03:23 GMT -8
Claude < Yes of course they must have a good reason...
But I cannot understand why putting Inachis io with Aglais instead of Nymphalis... also heard that Polygonia has disappeared and has been lumped with Nymphalis.
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Post by maliciousinchworm on Jan 27, 2011 10:14:33 GMT -8
Dear friends I have been searching info on these genera recently: Nymphalis, Aglais and Polygonia are regarded nowadays as three separated genera, all of them monophyletic. The info on the net is contradictory, and any of you is free to follow his own opinions, I follow Wahlberg at the moment, but I may change in the future if a better solution comes up. Here a tree of how Wahlberg understands Nymphalini, sure most of you already know the page: www.nymphalidae.net/Phylogeny/Nymphalini.htmDo any of you have a reference for Maculinea, some people accept now it as a synonim of Phengaris, me too as it seems the current fashion, but I´ve not read any paper on the matter. I would be interested. Regards, Alejandro A.
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