Charles

Yes, I agree that it gives a bad impression. I also think that the way that the common names of many of the more obscure species have been assigned as the scientific name also gives an impression of incompetence. At least in Recorder 3 names like 'a rove beetle' were provided which is much better.

Presumably it shouldn't be too difficult to 1) Ensure that a scientific name entry actually is a scientific name and 2) at least as a start add back in the Recorder 3 general common names.

Bob Saville

Lothian Wildlife Information Centre
info@lothianwildlife.co.uk

Now we have the taxon group data available to us then it is certainly a technical possibility that the group name could be quite easily included where a common name doesn't exist. I think this would make for a useful change in Recorder.

In my own queries I use a bit of logic to do the same thing. Something like this, for instance:

CASE WHEN ITN2.PREFERRED_NAME = ITN2.COMMON_NAME THEN
  TXG.TAXON_GROUP_NAME
ELSE
  ITN2.COMMON_NAME
END AS [COMMON NAME]

I.e when the common name is the same as the scientific name, I use the taxon group instead.

Charles

Good idea about the common names & groups Charles.  This would be a simple update to Index_Taxon_Name.  I'll raise it on the Future Developments page.