It is even worse than that, Nigel, as is is not even certain that these are the only species in the lucorum complex.

I can't understand why people get so worked up about this, as it is by no means the only situation where species can't be identified in the field (and sometimes not even with a body), and we don't get dipterists for example suffering the same angst.  The Bombus business has led to the idiotic 'terrestris/lucorum' pseudotaxon, which has no justification in science and sets a precedent for an infinity of other pseudotaxa (except that in most cases difficulties are managed in a rather more sensible fashion).

B. terrestris is easy (apart from some workers), so record it as the species.

For 'lucorum', the sky will not fall on your head if you just don't record it at all, or if you must record it then do it at the genus and add an appropriate comment.

Murdo

Hi Nigel,

Quite a lot has already been said in this thread: http://forums.nbn.org.uk/viewtopic.php?id=1983

It can be quite hard to find previous relevant threads!

I don't see, Nigel, how recording accurately at genus level can possibly be regarded as a step backward from recording inaccurately at species level.  We have no idea what the species limits are in 'Bombus lucorum' - neither how many cryptic species we have, nor what the morphological correlates are.

Until the dictionary is updated to include the B. lucorum aggregate, the only sensible option is to go for genus.  There are currently two idiotic pseudotaxa in the List of additional names which you can use if you want, but no-one should  give these any credibility at all.  They indicate nothing except that some species cannot be reliably distinguished in the field.  This is nothing new, and not confined to Bombus.

M.