Fwd: Re: Skipper

[christian thompson]

John et alia:

Dan is right on the money again when he wrote:
I am all for species level dets on the web from photos, but I think
that we should be brutally honest about not putting a species level
name unless we feel absolutely certain.

As a professional insect identifier for USDA as well as a scientist we
need to remember a couple of things:

1) What is the identification going to be used for, etc.  As Dan points
out that you can never be sure what "innocents" may do with your
identification. So, one needs to know who is requesting the
identification and for what purpose.

2) Science requires a high quality level. For science, we want to be
able to "re-test" our hypotheses, etc. and for identifications which are
to be the basis for scientific hypotheses we should be requesting /
demanding that there is a VOUCHER. I would like to say that that a
voucher always is a physical specimen, but, for Dan, I will agree that
we do not need to collect a King Vulture if we have a good picture. The
problem is whether non-specimen vouchers are good enough to show
sufficient characters to allow current and future workers to make a
proper identifications. For skippers and most flies, the answer is NO.

HENCE, I have started to tell people who sent me digital pictures that
I will not make specific identification without seeing a specimen and
also being able to retain that specimen in a public collections, etc.
Science demands at least that. For general public, etc., a common name
(group name) like "flower fly," "horse fly," "long-tailed skipper,"
etc., is sufficient.

Cheers

F. Christian Thompson
Systematic Entomology Lab., USDA
c/o Smithsonian Institution
MRC-0169 NHB
PO Box 37012
Washington, DC 20013-7012
(202) 382-1800 voice
(202) 786-9422 FAX
cthompso at sel.barc.usda.gov e-mail
www.diptera.org  web site

>>> Daniel Janzen <djanzen at SAS.UPENN.EDU> 08/13/03 09:06AM >>>
John, my take on this is that we should not encourage det attempts on
photos past what we feel absolutely certain about, because the
innocents will put that species level name on that photo, and then
others will have photos that look "exactly" like it, and will not
have the benefit of our ifs, ands and buts.  And then pretty soon
every long-tailed Urbanus from S. America will appear with the name
Urbanus proteus (even that word "group" will disappear, and besides,
nobody but taxonomists knows what is a "group").  I have 7 of them
here in the ACG that look like that thing superficially (and the
greens above go all over the place, depending) and perhaps even more,
and who knows what will be in some Urbanus mess in S. America.

I am all for species level dets on the web from photos, but I think
that we should be brutally honest about not putting a species level
name unless we feel absolutely certain.  Upperside proteus group are,
in my opinion, simply not doable to speciers from photos or
otherwise, unless you already have the entire package of species for
your particular site down cold.

Smile.

Dan Janzen

>X-Priority: 3 (Normal)
>Importance: Normal
>X-OriginalArrivalTime: 13 Aug 2003 13:34:23.0412 (UTC)
>                        FILETIME=[9B903740:01C3619F]
>Date:         Wed, 13 Aug 2003 08:34:14 -0500
>Reply-To: John Shuey <jshuey at TNC.ORG>
>Sender: Taxacom Discussion List <TAXACOM at USOBI.ORG>
>From: John Shuey <jshuey at TNC.ORG>
>Subject:      Re: Skipper
>To: TAXACOM at USOBI.ORG
>Status:
>
>You can take it a step further and say its in the Urbanus "proteus
group"
>which at least eliminates about 50% of the other Urbanus species.
>
>Sticking my neck way out - it has a character that is unique to U.
proteus
>itself - that's the way the green "fades out" towards the margin of
the
>hindwing.   All the other described species in the "proteus group"
have a
>sharply defined edge to the iridescent green.   However, this is a
character
>that is hard to interpret using a bullet lamp on a pinned bug.  So -
the
>lack of an edge to the green could simply be a photographic artifact.
>
>Do you have a photo of the ventral wing surfaces of this specific bug
(as
>opposed to a different bug [but seemingly the same species]
photographed
>perhaps minutes later - many of the "proteus group" species are very
common
>and fly together (perhaps using the same early successional
hostplants??).
>There are better characters below.
>
>John
>_________________
>John Shuey
>Director of Conservation Science
>Indiana Office of The Nature Conservancy
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Taxacom Discussion List [mailto:TAXACOM at USOBI.ORG]On Behalf Of
>Daniel Janzen
>Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2003 3:08 PM
>To: TAXACOM at USOBI.ORG
>Subject: Fwd: Skipper
>
>
>Urbanus.  After that, forget it.  Dont believe anything you hear
>unless it is from Dr. Urbanus.
>
>
>>X-Priority: 3 (Normal)
>>Importance: Normal
>>Date:         Wed, 13 Aug 2003 00:19:18 +0200
>>Reply-To: "Joseph M. Torres" <joseph at FCSF.ORG>
>>Sender: Taxacom Discussion List <TAXACOM at USOBI.ORG>
>>From: "Joseph M. Torres" <joseph at FCSF.ORG>
>>Organization: FCSF
>>Subject:      Skipper
>>To: TAXACOM at USOBI.ORG
>>Status:  O
>>
>>Dear Taxacomers,
>>
>>I am trying to identify this skipper from the southwester coastal
region
>>of the province of Esmeraldas (Ecuador).
>>
>>http://www.colibri.ws/forum_colibri/showthread.php?s=
>><http://www.colibri.ws/forum_colibri/showthread.php?s=&threadid=62>
>>&threadid=62
>>
>>Thanks again for your help.
>>
>>Joseph Torres