1 Topic by ser

  • ser
  • ser
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  • From: Staffordshire Ecological Recor
  • Registered: 24-09-2008
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Topic: The "List of Additional Names"

Can someone tell me when this "dump" list is going to be properly sorted out, I'm finding serious problems trying to send out full info for taxonomic groups - e.g. a full list of all Lepidoptera from the standard list omits Blastobasis lacticolella because it is on the Additional names list.

Alternatively can someone tell me how to get ALL my Lepidoptera records in one simple search including those on the Additional Names list?

Craig

Craig Slawson
Staffordshire Ecological Record

ser's Website

2 Reply by ChrisR

  • ChrisR
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  • Registered: 27-08-2011
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Re: The "List of Additional Names"

Hi Craig

Sorry for the frustration - there are many people out there who have noted the same problems (slowness and lack of a hierarchy) and we are looking at ways to resolve it. As is always the way, the List of Additional Names was an elegant way to get around the fact that relying on checklist updates wasn't going to react fast enough to allow people to record new species. But as time has gone on the list has grown and grown so that it is way larger than anyone would have predicted.

The issue with the Lepidoptera sounds more like a Recorder query issue to me though. I can't speak for the Recorder team (I'm hoping they will chip in some advice) but it should be possible to generate a list of a particular taxonomic group, regardless of the list the name appears on.

Chris Raper, Manager of the UK Species Inventory, Angela Marmont Centre for UK Biodiversity,
Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD.  (tel: 020 7942 5894)
also Tachinid Recording Scheme (http://tachinidae.org.uk/)

3 Reply by ser

  • ser
  • ser
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  • From: Staffordshire Ecological Recor
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Re: The "List of Additional Names"

Chris

A search for Lepidoptera does not find my particular example (Blastobasis lacticolella) because it ONLY appears on the Additional Names list and has no entry in the "Parent" field in TAXON_LIST_ITEM table, hence Recorder has no idea that it is a moth!

I'll admit this problem could be totally down to Recorder's implementation of the Additional Names list rather than NHM's original list because I notice that Recorder's preferred TVK for B.lacticolella is NHMSYS0020326905 while the NHM list gives NHMSYS0020676097 with the Recorder one as a badly formed synonym (no authority) - the version with authority doesn't appear to have reached Recorder yet despite just having received a dictionary update.

I think (hopefully someone will confirm this) that to get all Lepidoptera, I need to search on the TAXON_GROUP field ="insect - moth" and ="insect - butterfly" rather than is a child of Lepidoptera - I now need to see if I can work out the SQL for this - ooer!

Craig

Craig Slawson
Staffordshire Ecological Record

ser's Website

4 Reply by ChrisR

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Re: The "List of Additional Names"

Hi Craig

Yes, I was thinking that you could use the TAXON_GROUPs to sort out your higher groupings.

Off the top of my head (not tested!) just add an inner join between TAXON_VERSION and TAXON_GROUP_NAME on TAXON_VERSION.OUTPUT_GROUP_KEY = TAXON_GROUP_NAME.TAXON_GROUP_KEY

then add a WHERE clause like: ... AND (TAXON_GROUP_NAME.TAXON_GROUP_NAME = "insect - moth" OR TAXON_GROUP_NAME.TAXON_GROUP_NAME = "insect - butterfly")

Piece of cake ;)

Chris Raper, Manager of the UK Species Inventory, Angela Marmont Centre for UK Biodiversity,
Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD.  (tel: 020 7942 5894)
also Tachinid Recording Scheme (http://tachinidae.org.uk/)