Philander. This
happens when we can't automatically assign an identification to one of the
output taxa.
Review identifications of Philander opossum 42585
Taxonomic Split 137379
(Committed on 2024-01-05)
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split into |
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Comments
For Nicaragua, there is nothing mapped by Voss et al. 2018. It is probably vossi but could be melanurus, so best left blank unless we find another source.
For Peru, Voss et al. 2018 only mention P. canus, of these four. They also indicate records of P. andersoni, P. pebas and P. mcilhennyi, and say that many supposed records of P. opossum in Peru are actually P. pebas, so we might be better to let those go to genus.
Does make sense for both Nicaragua and Peru to go to genus. Based on the crude information in the papers I think the atlases are as good as they can be now, so I think OK to commit. This is a small split so does not need staff approval
Ok, many thanks for your help @rjq! I have just now committed the split. It's the largest and most complex one I've done so far, so hopefully it will run smoothyl
The range maps are not updated. The original range remains with P. opossum in the full extend, while the other three have no range maps.
Thanks @ivanaebrova. Yes, we still have three things to finalise with this split - updating the range maps, the taxon frameworks, and common names. See flag: https://www.inaturalist.org/flags/644839 If you can help with any of those it would be great! @edgar_crispino may also be able to help with the maps. If not I will do these, but I won't have time to do so for a few days
For now, I have deleted the range map from P. opossum, so as not to cause confusion.
Added the Taxon frameworks, the new species are available for Taxon framework relationships
Great, thank you!
I have no idea how range maps are edited (can anyone do that?). Anyway, this seems rather complicated case..
But generally, cloud thinks like that be solved before the split is committed? Lately, there have been several rather chaotic splits on inat..
@ivanaebrova Range maps are probably the most complex and time-consuming part of a split like this, because someone needs to edit them in GIS software, and we curators are all volunteers working on this in our spare time. The map above these comments will give you a pretty good idea of the distribution. @edgar_crispino let me know how you are getting on with the maps, and if you haven't had a chance to split them, I can do that this weekend.
@deboas got myself entangled in a series of matters that I thought I would solve quickly (not related to iNat), but since them I haven't been able to work on the maps or do any progress.
No worries, Edgar, I spent some time on it today and added the maps. There are still some uncertainties, so I had to make some assumptions in some places, and some observations fall outside the mapped range, but with the exception of Colombia, where I expanded the range of P. canus a lot to join two disparate areas, I thought it was better to leave the original P. opossum map as it was. Someone with more knowledge of these species can make further updates in the future.
@deboas I understand and genuinely appreciate the work. My point is that there's no rush to commit splits like this; it can wait until someone has the time to edit the maps, can't it? It's when the split is committed that users receive notifications and go to review the observations. It would be great to have the necessary information inside iNat already at that time.
Hi @ivanaebrova it's useful to get your perspective. Perhaps it's because I mostly curate insects and plants, which typically don't have range maps at all, that I don't tend to think of the range maps as being a very important part of the process. Understanding that there are users for whom these have greater relevance and would like to see them at the moment the split is committed is useful to know - I'll keep it in mind for future splits.
There are a few parts of the range of opossum s.l. that are not represented in the atlases eg Nicaragua and Peru - any idea which species occur there? If not, no worries as there are only a few records from there.