Are there any biogeography, taxonomy, entomology type folks out there?
If that is a 'yes'...I have a question. I think I know the answer, but looking for discussion. (for those of you who disdain shoptalk, we apologize, in advance). I'm reviewing biological data from a US National Survey. I've come across two names, genus level, of midges that have previously been known from only Europe. I've been doing this for 30+ years, and am a bit flabbergasted. Thoughts?
@b4cks4w All of these are possibilities. Still working on it. I suspect there have been some new combinations of holarctic taxa, but don't know yet. The principal taxonomists should know. Just came across this today.
@b4cks4w If you're interested, I'll let you know when I have more feedback from the taxonomists. Should be in the next couple of days or so.
@celticsfanaticentomologist
Sure, always curious. I'm coming from the information classification/categorization domain (Taxonomy/ontology), not biology per se, but have a bit of bio background.
@celticsfanaticentomologist What's the genus? One of my staff is a Diptera taxonomist and might have an opinion.
@Treebugz Don't know. It's a buprestid, so Coleoptera.
@celticsfanaticentomologist No, I meant your post from a couple of days ago about the midge.
@Treebugz Oh, right. Don't remember off the top of my head. On my phone now, would need to open my laptop to find out. Not going to do it tonight, tomorrow sometime. But, there are 2 different genera.
@Treebugz There are actually 3 midge genera, apparently European, that have shown up in this dataset: Demeijerea, Heterotanytarsus, and Lipiniella.
@Treebugz OK. Just got off a call with the labs/taxonomists. Didn't ask for or have time for a detailed explanation, but they both said all the genera DO occur in North America.
@celticsfanaticentomologist I will try to check with my staff member tomorrow but I'm still officially on vacation.
@celticsfanaticentomologist All three genera are known from North America – listed in “An Introduction to the Aquatic Insects of North America”.
@Treebugz Yeah, apparently are pretty rare. Demeijerea hasn't been recorded by the freshwater biological survey I work on, a Heterotanytarsus and Lipiniella, the former a single specimen in each of 2 samples and the latter, one specimen in one sample. And that's out of 900 samples. They are rare, and I just didn't remember seeing them. Thanks for checking.
@celticsfanaticentomologist
Could be just a mistake? When was the survey recorded? Is this particular survey digital, if so someone could search for instances of that name, and/or figure out who recorded it.