1 Topic by kitenet

  • kitenet
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  • Registered: 11-05-2006
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Topic: Pandivirilia (Diptera: Therevidae)

Just noticed that there seem to be three versions of the name for the stilleto-fly that I know as Pandivirilia melaleuca:
1. Pandivirilia melaleuca (Loew, 1847), https://data.nbn.org.uk/Taxa/NBNSYS0000173330
2. Pandivirilia melaleauca (Loew, 1847), https://data.nbn.org.uk/Taxa/NHMSYS0020734208
3. Psilocephala melaleuca (Loew, 1847), https://data.nbn.org.uk/Taxa/NHMSYS0020526628

Option 1 is the name I understand to be currently correct.
Option 2 is a spelling that I've never seen used.
Option 3 is a generic synonym.

All three names seem to be shown as recommended. This is an RDB1 species but NBN shows the RDB status for option 3 only, not for the current name.

I would suggest that option 3 should be shown as a synonym that points to option 1. I don't know why option 2 is needed at all, but if it needs to be kept it should also be shown as a synonym that points to option 1. Option 1 should be shown as RDB1.

Thanks,
Martin

Martin Harvey
Biological Records Centre
CEH Wallingford

kitenet's Website

2 Reply by ChrisR

  • ChrisR
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Re: Pandivirilia (Diptera: Therevidae)

Hi Martin

I have synonymised those under the first name and marked option-2 as ill-formed :)

The designation is a tricky one but it should have been made easier now that the names have all been grouped together. Am I right in thinking that none of the names currently carry the RDB1 status? If so then we need to have a chat with Dario at the JNCC because they maintain these statuses. If one of the names carries the RDB1 status but it's not the currently accepted name then we can't change that because it is on statute with that name. Instead you'd just have to pass the query through Nameserver to group the statuses by the Recommended_Taxon_Version_Key :)

Best wishes,
Chris R.

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 kitenet

  • kitenet
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Re: Pandivirilia (Diptera: Therevidae)

Chris, the current (20140822) JNCC spreadsheet has Psilocephala melaleuca as Endangered (RedList_GB_Pre94-EN), but because this name was not linked to Pandivirilia melaleuca as the recommended name it makes it very hard for people dealing with modern data to realise that Pandivirilia is a Red Data species. So if you've made Psilocephala point to Pandivirilia that should sort things out once the updates have fed through the system - thanks.

The status term itself will need to be updated once Martin Drake's review of this group of flies is published, which I hope will happen quite soon now.

Martin Harvey
Biological Records Centre
CEH Wallingford

kitenet's Website

4 Reply by ChrisR

  • ChrisR
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Re: Pandivirilia (Diptera: Therevidae)

That's great - thanks for confirming that :)  Yes, having statuses on names, rather than taxa, makes for a fiddly Query - passing the TVK into Nameserver then back into Nameserver (reversed direction) into Taxon_List_Item and into Taxon_Designation.

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/)