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Raphicerus melanotis, likely misidentified as Raphicerus sharpei #5177

Open sformel-usgs opened 7 months ago

sformel-usgs commented 7 months ago

US node manager (me) received this feedback via email. The dataset POC (admin@paleobiodb.org) was copied too, but so far, no response. Creating the issue to help keep an eye on it.

Dear PBDB,

Feedback from GBIF.org regarding: https://www.gbif.org/occurrence/1698820472. The basis of record is “fossil specimen” from the site Elands Bay Cave. The species for this record is listed as Raphicerus sharpei (Sharpe’s grysbok), which I believe to be incorrect and it should be Raphicerus melanotis (Cape grysbok). These are two closely related African dwarf antelope that have been considered conspecific by some authorities in the past, but since around the 1950s have been accepted as distinct species (see attached: Castley, G., & Lloyd, P. (2013). Raphicerus melanotis Cape grysbok. In J. Kingdon & M. Hoffman (Eds.), Mammals of Africa, Volume VI: Pigs, Hippopotamuses, Chevrotain, Giraffes, Deer and Bovids (pp. 304-307). London: Bloomsbury Publishing.). Importantly, the two grysbok species have distinct ranges/distributions in Africa, separated by thousands of kilometres (see attached map).

The record in question is within the distribution range of R. melanotis, but is recorded as R. sharpei. In the attached associated reference (R. C. Klein and K. Cruz-Uribe. 1987. Large mammal and tortoise bones from Eland's Bay Cave and nearby sites, Western Cape Province, South Africa. BAR International Series 332(I):132-163), the authors only list the vernacular names and not the scientific names of the species – thus only listing “grysbok” as the species occurring at this site. It would seem that this was misinterpreted as Sharpe’s grysbok (R. sharpei), instead of the much more likely Cape grysbok (R. melanotis), given that the site is within the distribution range of Cape grysbok and that Sharpe’s grysbok has never occurred there. The age of the site is <20,000 years old, at which point the two species had already diverged (they diverged ~2-6 million years ago).

I hope you take this information into account to correct the record. Please do not hesitate to contact me should you have any questions.

Kind regards

Deon de Jager

@DeondeJager , I believe you are the person who notified us of this, please feel free to update this if you hear anything.

DeondeJager commented 5 months ago

I haven't heard anything from the PBDB and I see the record still says "Raphicerus sharpei", so I contacted the PBDB directly via email at info@paleobiodb.org. Will report back if I get a response.

DeondeJager commented 4 months ago

@sformel-usgs @jhnwllr I finally got responses from the PBDB. The record has been corrected on the PBDB. Will this change be pulled into GBIF?

sformel-usgs commented 4 months ago

@DeondeJager Thanks for your diligence! Looking at the ingestion history, it looks like the PBDB publishes updates to GBIF around the 23rd of each month. So, I suspect we'll see it in GBIF in a few weeks. Let's both try to remember to check on it, and once it shows up we can close this issue.

DeondeJager commented 4 months ago

OK great, thanks Stephen. Glad to be of service! Will try to remember to check after the 23rd and then close the issue, yes.

DeondeJager commented 2 months ago

Update: I checked today and the record has not yet been updated on GBIF.

sformel-usgs commented 2 months ago

@DeondeJager I think I misinterpreted the provenance of this info. This data is being fed through VertNet to GBIF, so I'm hoping @dbloom can check it out for us.

Dave, so you don't have to read the whole thread, essentially Deonde convinced the PBDB that this record should be Raphicerus melanotis (Cape grysbok), not Raphicerus sharpei (Sharpe’s grysbok). It looks like the record has been updated in the PBDB, but that it isn't reflected in VertNet/GBIF.

Can you please look into it when you have some time?

dbloom commented 2 months ago

@sformel-usgs For me to make those kinds of changes PBDB will need to provide me with a new export of the data they want to publish to GBIF, VN, iDigBio. Their last update was back in 2017. It's probably time for them to update. The last update to the dataset in 2024 was at the request of the Paleo Working Group and it only corrected the basisOfRecord for all records. They should contact me directly to make this happen.

[EDIT 20240711: I am in contact with MUhen about the possibility of an update]