Taxonomy interpretation of Zygoptera as Protozoa instead of Animalia

[gbif-portal]

Taxonomy interpretation of Zygoptera as Protozoa instead of Animalia

In this collection there are some records of suborder "Zygoptera" of Odonata, but the backbone is interpreting them as Protozoa and it looks strange in the taxonomy of an entomology collection to have some records of Protozoa. Is it possible of interpret them as Animalia?

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[ManonGros]

There are several issues here:

1. The occurrence here refers to Zygoptera Selys, 1854 which is an Odonata suborder in the Catalogue of Life (https://www.catalogueoflife.org/data/taxon/B6NHX) and isn't our GBIF Backbone taxonomy because we don't currently support intermediate ranks.
2. The Zygoptera genus we have in the backbone taxonomy is Zygoptera Popofsky, 1904 and comes from the IRMNG: https://www.irmng.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=1395611. I cannot find the original publication but according to this website, it should belong to the class Acantharea: http://organismnames.com/details.htm?lsid=3727334. I am also a bit confused because the status for this taxon in IRMNG is "uncertain". Perhaps it shouldn't be included in the checklist shared on GBIF? Or perhaps it shouldn't be included in the GBIF Backbone taxonomy.

Right now it looks like most occurrences matched to Zygoptera Popofsky, 1904 on GBIF are actually Odonata: https://www.gbif.org/species/4912242. This makes them difficult to find for the original users.

@mdoering is there anything we could do to improve the match?

I am also tagging @TonyRees as he might have some insights on what to do with Zygoptera Popofsky, 1904.

[TonyRees]

Hi @ManonGros, thanks for the alert. I have chased down Zygoptera Popofsky, 1904 a little further and, though I cannot locate the original work via BHL for some reason (other volumes are there), It seems that Popofsky reproduced the same information in a 1904 thesis where the name appears on p. 27 (https://oceanrep.geomar.de/id/eprint/37008/1/Diss.1904Popofsky%2CA.pdf) as a member of Acantharea (Radiolaria) in the family Lithopteridae. It seems that no-one else has revised this genus so my default would be to change this genus' status in IRMNG to "accepted" per the original work at this time, also upgrade its family placement, previously just "Prot[ista]" from Neave/Nomenclator Zoologicus.

So the next stable release of IRMNG will include Zygoptera Popofsky, 1904 as an accepted genus in Acantharea (already changed on the master/web version, see https://www.irmng.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=1395611). This does not directly affect the mis-classification of damselflies (suborder Zygoptera Selys-Longchamps, 1854 in order Odonata) which is the present problem... According to Dijkstra et al., 2013. The classification and diversity of dragonflies and damselflies (Odonata). In: Zhang, Z.-Q.(Ed.) Animal Biodiversity: An Outline of Higher-level Classification and Survey of Taxonomic Richness (Addenda 2013). Zootaxa, 3703(1), pp.36-45. available at https://www.biotaxa.org/Zootaxa/article/view/zootaxa.3703.1.9/53170, to 2010, 30 families of Odonata had been described of which 18 belong to the suborder Zygoptera, 11 to the Anisoptera and 1 to the Anisozygoptera (more recent values may be different...)

I guess I could add these suborders to IRMNG if it helps, but would have to look into the placement of fossil families (if any) as well, plus any more recent literature. But it would be better if they came in with the other data for Odonata really (IRMNG is not really a source for taxonomy of insects...) BTW as far as I know, the existence of the same name for different taxa in zoology is not considered a case of homonymy if these occur at different ranks, so the use of both is legitimate in this instance.

[mdoering]

@ManonGros when interpreted with the rank suborder it snaps to Animalia: https://api.gbif.org/v1/species/match?verbose=true&name=Zygoptera&kingdom=Animalia&Phylum=Arthropoda&Class=Insecta&Order=Odonata&rank=Suborder

The rank Suborden is currently not supported. I will add it to the parsers, but it takes time it will trickle down to the next deployment

[ManonGros]

Thank you @TonyRees for investigating and thank you @mdoering for working on a solution!

@EstebanMH-SiB would it be possible to recommend to the publishers to change the value Suborden to suborder in the data? (even though we will be able to parse surborden in the next deployment, it would help with the immediate issue)

[EstebanMH-SiB]

Thank you very much @ManonGros, it is interpreting as Animalia after the change 🎉