Request to review and update Echinoprocta on ITIS

[camiplata]

Describe the problem: Please consider the revision of the monotypic genus Echinoprocta wich is not longer recognized. Thus:

Coendou rufescens (Gray, 1865) ≡ Echinoprocta rufescens Gray, 1865

Link to effected CoL webpages: https://www.catalogueoflife.org/data/taxon/19b39e72-647e-4da1-9c7d-c1c395fba8f2

Literature references:

• Voss, R. S., Hubbard, C., & Jansa, S. A. (2013). Phylogenetic relationships of New World porcupines (Rodentia, Erethizontidae): implications for taxonomy, morphological evolution, and biogeography. American Museum Novitates, 2013(3769), 1-36. https://doi.org/10.1206/3769.2

[yroskov]

For @DaveNicolson attention

[DaveNicolson]

@camiplata , Is the identity/affiliation of the submitter known? ITIS normally updates mammals in larger taxonomic "chunks" than this... I'm awaiting feedback on whether an update has been started including this or not.

[camiplata]

Hi! @DaveNicolson, I'm the submitter I noticed the issue when contrasting COL, IUCN and the Colombian list of mammals. Every couple of years the "Sociedad Colombiana de Mastozoología" makes a thorough taxonomic revision. I also noticed some missing endemic species. I can make a complete report of the differences if that could be useful for you and your team.

[DaveNicolson]

Factoring in that kind of list of differences would likely only slow down the updates, as we normally follow a single source for mammal updates (other sources are normally only needed to resolve any issues remaining in the data after merging in the newer taxonomy, on an ad-hoc basis). So our normal process is to identify the next mammal group to update, the capture the new source data for the taxonomy, to merge it with existing ITIS data, to resolve any residual names from ITIS that aren't explicitly covered in the new source, to run the resulting updated data through additional quality control steps (involving 2 additional staff as new eyes, and my own review at the very end), then to load the finalized data update into ITIS. Operating on a taxonomic chunk means a much lower number of manual updates, which gets larger updates out more quickly. In the future (with our online taxonomic workbench) we should be able to much more easily make individual name updates as needed, but as of now it is far less efficient & productive to work on single names outside of the larger update efforts.

For mammals we talk to mammalogists (Anthony Rylands helps a lot, plus a few others) to identify the best sources for updating a given mammal group. The first stop is normally the Mammal Diversity Database, although subspecies and synonymy there are still difficult (sometimes impossible!) to derive in full name combinations, so we listen to feedback on whether there are treatments we should include/follow other than MDD.

In this case, unless there is a pressing need to get this particular genus sunk and the species transferred ASAP, we propose to register a request to update porcupines & relatives, and we'll start on them when ready to start on the next mammal group (we need to make some progress on some other priority updates, but this will be in the queue).

[camiplata]

Thank you for explaining the ITIS workflow, it is useful to know it. There is no pressing need to make this specific update, once ITIS team starts working on the porcupines you will come across this change. I have checked the Mammal Diversity Database and is indeed hard to track synonyms, one would have to look up all the diff files from version to version to get a grip of all changes. If I come across any other source for porcupines & relatives I'll let you know.

For the time been, I'll let the issue open so we don't lose track of the synonym relationship.

[mdoering]

See also missing species Phyllotis vaccarum: https://github.com/CatalogueOfLife/data/issues/572