World Odonata List

and Scott, I'd be happy to try to resolve the "mystery iNat name" with the current world list when we figure out which way we are going here. Many of the mystery names have been superseded by current North America names already. I assume the common names that exist for North America (and some other areas) will remain as they are.

There should be no difference between the OC NA List and the Schorr & Paulson World List for North America. Dennis and I regularly, along with others, work to keep several versions of the World List current. I am actually actively creating an Odonata Species File and bringing a handful of odonatologists from around the world that maintain databases, together. This will not only provide a single place for up-to-date taxonomy with synonyms, but also have literature, distribution and much more associated with it.

Thanks John. Scott, FYI, my cable modem just went down so I'm out of commission till tomorrow at least. Using a neighbors wifi at their house at the moment.

Happy to help on the mind-numbing repetitive work.

Hello, all. Matt has asked me to comment. There are still typographical errors in the online Odonata World List, and I am trying to correct them whenever I learn about them. For example, I just learned from this exchange that Coeliccia prakritii was incorrect, an orthographic mistake that found its way into the literature, and I have corrected it to pracritii. Little by little these errors are being worked out of the list, but some are still present, I'm sure. The North American list should be good and up to date except for one new species just added that I haven't added to the list on the Slater Museum website yet.

I assume we are only talking about scientific names here. We have an established set of common (English) names for "North American" (continental US + Canada) species, but those names are not established elsewhere in this hemisphere, no matter what names you have seen in Flickr photo sites, etc. Other English-speaking countries in the Old World have their own sets of English names, and a few differ from our NA names, just as we have both Common Loon and Great Northern Diver among the bird. But it's much worse in odonates, as each of several countries in Asia have come up with their own lists that aren't the same. So far there has been no serious attempt to try to standardize English names across countries, and it may be too late.

I would be happy to look at your 100 Mystery Synonyms to see if I can work them out, as I have been working with the world list for a long time. If whoever has that list could send it to me, I will begin to try to straighten it out.

Fantastic - thanks Dennis. And yes just talking about scientific names. Really appreciate your advice + work building/maintaining/sharing these lists

wow - the Mystery Synonyms are complete - thanks very much Dennis et al. for working on those. @dennispaulson, will you update https://www.pugetsound.edu/academics/academic-resources/slater-museum/biodiversity-resources/dragonflies/world-odonata-list2/ with the changes you've noted? Or should we work with the version thats up there now and be ware of the caveats in your notes?

Ok looks like Dennis did update the World Odonata List as 197 https://www.pugetsound.edu/academics/academic-resources/slater-museum/biodiversity-resources/dragonflies/world-odonata-list2/, I used that as the source and iNat Ode taxonomy is now synced up. More specifically, by iNat Ode taxonomy, I mean all extant descendants of the order Odonata down to rank species (Like our World Odonata List reference, we're ignoring extinct species, hybrids and are agnostic about what happens below rank species - ie ssp). As for which taxonomic nodes are included in our taxonomy in between Order and Species, I pulled families and genera from the World Odonata List. And while World Odonata List doesn't include suborders, I took the liberty of also including 3 suborders for Dragonflies (Suborder Anisoptera), Damselflies (Suborder Zygoptera) and the enigmatic Family Epiophlebiidae (Suborder Anisozygoptera). We'll just have to work to keep things in sync as the World Odonata List evolves.

One thing thats kind of cool, is I activated this new feature we're experimenting with where I can mark the Odonata node on the tree as 'complete' meaning that all Ode species are accounted for in iNat. If you go here https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/47792-Odonata if says '

1,648 of 6,273 total species observed' above the seasonality graph. Also if you click on the 'Trends' tab, you'll see 'Wanted' (ie these 6,273-1,648 species we haven't observed) and 'Discoveries' showing iNat firsts like https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/7772366

1,648 of 6,273 is >25% of all species which isn't bad considering how diverse this group is in remote places. Nice collective work Odonaters!
Also looping in @robert_taylor (let me know if there's any ode experts out there I left out)

tagging a few more folks who are involved with and/or make numerous odonate submissions to iNat: @finatic @erlandreflingnielsen @beschwar @treichard @upupamartin @dianaterryhibbitts @bryanpfeiffer @colindjones @blustm @nbdragonflyguy @gpstewart @aredoubles @pbedell @mike_moore

Adding a bunch of European odonate folks @fausto @alexminico @erlandreflingnielsen @jenskipping7 @klaasdouwedijkstra @xkd @paulcools

Thanks to dennispaulson for sorting out the mystery synonyms. I'll go ahead an make the following updates to bring iNat in-line with WOL v.212:

New taxa:
Drepanosticta rahmani

Heteragrion tatama
Coeliccia bhriulieci
Coeliccia duytan
Coeliccia rolandorum
Nososticta nicobarica
Megalagrion nigrolineatum
Oligoaeschna sirindhornae
Gomphidictinus tongi
Perigomphus basicornis

Swaps:
Acanthagrion peruvianum => Acanthagrion floridense
Aeshna lucia => Aeshna mixta
Aeshna osiliensis => Aeshna serrata
Paragomphus mariannae => Cornigomphus mariannae
Gomphidia interruptistria => Gomphidictinus perakensis
Hemistigma ouvirandrae => Hemistigma affine
Heteragrion atrolineatum => Heteragrion calendulum
Ischnura fountainei => Ischnura fountaineae
Anectothemis apicalis => Trithemis apicalis
Aciagrion heterosticta => Aciagrion heterostictum
Hemistigma albipuncta => Hemistigma albipunctum
Anormogomphus kiritschenkoi => Anormogomphus kiritshenkoi
Aciagrion congoense => Aciagrion africanum
Aciagrion karamoja => Aciagrion heterostictum
Megalagrion amaurodytum => Megalagrion koelense
Hemistigma affinis => Hemistigma affine

Thank you @dennispaulson and Scott for your time and knowkedge on this!

Also, I wanted to quickly summarize the decisions that I’ve been using this journal post reach with you all:

What taxonomic reference to use?
We’re using WOL which is explicitly versioned (ie v.214) and includes all extant Odonata families, genera, and species in the genus. Although they are not explicitly included in WOL, I added nodes for suborders representing Damselflies, Dragonflies and the enigmatic Family Epiophlebiidae (Suborder Anisozygoptera) since there’s a lot of IDs on iNat at rank suborder and it would be disruptive to remove them. We are not intentionally deviating from WOL with any special exceptions (which makes things really simple).

How often do we update iNat to WOL?
I’m advocating we proactively do this every 3 months and reactively if someone brings a discrepancy to our attention (e.g. “I’m trying to post an observation of species X which is in WOL but not in iNat - why?”)

Who are the taxon curators and for how long?
The only people who can change the taxonomy of Odonata on iNaturalist are now the Ode taxon curators. The role of the taxon curators is to help facilitate reaching consensus on any decisions affecting the taxonomy of Odonata on iNaturalist (as I’m doing here) and also doing the tedious work of altering the taxonomy (as I just described above). We can have multiple taxon curators (ideally 1 to 2 more) and I’m proposing we serve for the duration of a year (starting now, but officially through 2018). Chime in if you want to be an ode taxon curator - but please do so if you have time to help me with the roles mentioned above.

Note on dispute resolution process...
So far, no one has objected to any decisions discussed on this thread. I’d like to encourage a spirit of rough consensus towards decision making. But I’d also like to lay out a more formal process for resolving any disagreements in case we encounter a situation where it’s not clear what the sense of the group is down the road. For example, suppose some felt very strongly that we deviate from WOL and others that we don’t, or some felt very strongly that we update every 3 months and others that we update every month. How do we resolve such disputes?

I propose a vote among a ‘2018 ode working group’ composed of top ode identifiers. I’m proposing that we define ‘top ode identifiers’ as users in the top (90%) quantile based on number of improving IDs and number of species represented by those improving IDs made over the last 12 months. This ensures that the top ode identifiers are recently active (last 12-months), have lots of experience (number of IDs) adding accurate (improving) identifications and that their expertise spans a wide breadth of species (number of species represented by those improving IDs). I used this approach to make a graph I embedded at the top of this thread (and also linked to here) to identifies the following 27 users:

briang,vicfazio3,nlblock,greglasley,jimjohnson,lukeberg,joshualincoln,jimlem,aguilita,ericisley,cordulegaster58obliqua,aztekium,erlandreflingnielsen,joebartok,cmcheatle,mdillon444,ehjalmarson,mikef451,scottking,nbdragonflyguy,odonatanb,sambiology,mikeburrell,ricknirschl,fausto,beschwar,gpstewart

I propose this ‘2018 ode working group’ is in effect for the next 12 months. If there was a need to vote, we'd ping the working group here with a link to an online voting survey and a deadline and make a formal decision based on the result. Does this sound good to everyone?

Again, hoping there's no need for anything so formal, but I think its good to have a transparent process for resolving disputes laid out in advance in case we need it...

Hi, Scott. Just two comments about your very thorough treatment of this.

1) Epiophlebia is now considered in the suborder Epiophlebioptera, separated from Anisozygoptera.

2) You may have missed Leptogomphus schieli, which I just added to the list along with L. sii and Drepanosticta gazelle.

My revisions in the list are made usually as quickly as I receive papers with new species and taxonomic changes, although if I'm traveling or otherwise heavily occupied, there may be a delay. Sometimes this is as often as once a week or more. As you say, it seems sensible to revise the list in iNat at much longer intervals--say 3 months--but insert a revision of there is a question about the name for a submitted iNat record.

I think Jakob's idea is a good one.

And one more comment. No one else is working on the world list, so any questions you or others have about it should probably come to me first and directly through email (dennispaulson@comcast.net) rather than through iNat. John Abbott and I are discussing a more expanded Odonata Species List, but so far it's only a plan.

Dennis

Hi Jakob,

Good point. There's definitely a North American bias. Here's the results of the same procedure done to identify top-identifiers done separately for each continent. Names in bold are also global top-identifiers:
-=Europe=-
fausto, alexminico, purperlibel, nicolascatassi, susanne-kasimir, erlandreflingnielsen, inasiebert, cattin, jakob, redhat, jeremybarker, flight69, briang, eric_v, benoitnabholz, alessandro_bergamo, exonie, brunodurand, francescagraziani, carlacorazza, martingrimm, nicz, heldercardoso, fero, paulcools, pasqualebuonpane, markuslilje, savo, neomorphus, leibele
-=Africa=-
robert_taylor, markuslilje, erlandreflingnielsen, gawie, briang, jakob
-=Oceania=-
reiner, erlandreflingnielsen, richardyank, vicfazio3, dustaway, ianmcmillan, jon_sullivan, waterpenny1, azgulo, lek, marcelfinlay, lisa_bennett, briang, russ87
-=North America=-
briang, nlblock, vicfazio3, jimjohnson, greglasley, jimlem, joshualincoln, ericisley, aguilita, lukeberg, joebartok, aztekium, cordulegaster58obliqua, mikef451, cmcheatle, mdillon444, sambiology, ehjalmarson, scottking, ricknirschl, gpstewart, odonatanb, nbdragonflyguy, beschwar, thomasabenson, mikeburrell, birdbug62, colindjones, jemredwood
-=Asia=-
briang, big-simonchan, marcelfinlay, budak, aru, wkcheng71, lenachow, erlandreflingnielsen, harumkoh, chalita, gancw1, venus5026, rajibmaulick, sohkamyung, brunodurand, plaintiger, prosenjit, scottking, tommyswift, sunnetchan, oldman19510, vijaybarve
-=South America=-
briang, erlandreflingnielsen, mateohernandezschmidt, jimjohnson, nlblock, jujurenoult, jaykeller, juan_carlos_caicedo_hernandez, arnoldwijker, greglasley

The fact that the top-identifiers for Oceania (reiner) and Africa (robert_taylor) weren't included definitely doesn't seem right.

What would be a better approach? Also including the top 1 IDer from each continent if they aren't represented in the global top IDers? Only including top 5 IDers from each continent. rather than top IDers globally?

What about a team composed of the global top 3 IDers plus the top 3 IDers from each of the regions (skipping the global top 3 if present in the regional group)?

Looks good to me. Maybe one final question for the ode folks on iNat: would these lists miss out some ode specialists in terms of their taxonomic expertise, ie who are iNat users, but not top IDers? To put it the other way around: should such a "taxonomic board" try to incorporate additional expertise? (no offence to the top IDers intended!)

Hi Jakob, I just wanted to re-emphasize that the role of this working group would be dispute resolution if and when a conflict arises. Not necessarily lending taxonomic expertise. I think its important in the spirit of the site that disputes are resolved in a way that's representative of the iNat community and is a meritocracy based on community activity. I also think its important that the process for coming up with this group is objective (rather than subjective) for transparency's sake. These are reason's I'm a fan of using some a-priori system of drawing from top-IDers to select this working group.

Nonetheless, I agree that taxonomic expertise is most important for actually guiding taxonomic decisions (here we have an extreme case of this since we're using dennispaulson's list!). There's nothing to prevent taxon curators and the community from deferring to taxonomic experts under the approach I've outlined here, but I think the extent that the working group's role is narrowly restricted to dispute resolution and not necessarily intertwined with lending taxonomic expertise would actually be healthy.

But curious to hear what others think

There's always a risk of any working group being composed of members who will make non-optimal decisions. I guess it comes down to balancing the values of meritocracy, objectivity & community-representation in decision making vs. external third-party reputation. My feeling is that iNaturalist is at its core a community-based-peer-production effort like Wikipedia or the Open Source movement and these efforts tend to value the former over the latter in governance and decision making.

But just to re-re-emphasize, the role of this working group would be to settle disputes in a way thats hopefully in the best interest of the iNaturalist effort - not to be a source of taxonomic expertise. Thats a role for people like dennispaulson. I guess I trust that deference to advice from taxonomic experts would be a characteristic of a working group that is well representative of the iNat community, but I suppose I could be naive. On the flip-side though, an external oligarchy of PhDs who aren't very familiar with iNaturalist could also produce decisions that are sub-optimal for the iNat effort, and worse still, I suspect that the iNat community would be less inclined to go along with such decisions and it would be harder to reconcile this approach with the community-based-peer-production philosophy behind the site.

Our comments just crossed...

Hence my question to the ode folks!

Hello folks, first let me say, I am not an expert on Odonata taxonomy, I been trying to learn some basic concepts, still, my knowledge is very limited to a very small area in northeast Mexico, mainly, state of Nuevo León. If there is anything I could do, I will be happy to help, but I feel not up to the task on taxonomy, but basic identification around here. Let me read the whole thread.

The weighted approach discussed by Scott and Jakob sounds pretty good to me. I really like that this approach to taxonomy curation on iNat is being explored! Good stuff. :-)

My only comment is that from a data management standpoint, what we have going is horrific. We have multiple lists (Slater Museum, iNat, OC, and more) trying to stay in lock step. That is just not a good way to go in my opinion. As Dennis mentioned, I'm working on creating a Odonata Species File. What I hope will be a single source for the taxonomy of Odonata that can be accessed by multiple sites through an API. I think that is a much more efficient way to go than trying to maintain all these lists separately.

I am also certainly no expert in any region, or an expert on odonata generally - I just try to find and photograph and add as many species as I can wherever I happen to be (and I was lucky to get around a lot for a few years). I think it makes sense to have experts - global and regional - that can have some oversight.
Also a single list source sounds great and really should be applied for all taxa - there seems to be a degree of chaos in the birds too, with a single list as a base, with additions from other lists being accepted either as species or subspecies levels.

Hello there, I'm not a taxonomy expert, and I do not deserve to be in a "taxonomic board" but I'm interested in Odonata discussions. I studied Odonate anatomy and I know Odonata of Italy, Mediterranean and Europe, usually I use reliable guides/books to identify dragonflies of the rest of the World on Inat (ex. Dijkstra's for Africa or Paulson's for US), where I' ve no field experience... I can check Odonate of Europe, I will be glad to help...

Hi All,

My references state that Paragomphus fritillarius is restricted to Madagascar and that the mainland African P. sabicus (its' junior synonym being Paragomphus fritillarius ssp. sabicus) has been elevated to species. Do you perhaps know of any new literature which has combined the two species again?

See: http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/59981/0 and http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/88090527/0

Also: http://addo.adu.org.za/index.php?taxon_id=58300

Thanks

Hi folks - now that we have new 'Collection Projects' I've created a new Odonata Taxonomic Working Group project which has a journal that we can use for updates/discussions like this (probably a better place than this, my personal journal). Here's the first post https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/odonata-taxonomic-working-group/journal/17215-inaturalist-updated-to-wol-v-249 which is about the WOL v. 249 update. Please follow the project if you want to get notified about these posts