Adamjmtz

Notification about disabling the Wikipedia collections tool

Thank you for using the collections feature in Wikipedia beta! Due to technical and moderation issues, we will be turning off this experimental feature. Your collections will be available for viewing and export until March 1st. If you would like to save your collection as links on a special Wikipedia page, please fill out the following form. If you are interested in giving your feedback about Wikipedia Collections please do so here.

Thanks,

Jon Katz
Product manager, Wikimedia Foundation
Jkatz (WMF) (talk) 23:53, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Probergrothius

Hi. I noticed that you have asserted the name "angolensis" is the correct name for the species referred to as sexpunctatus, but I cannot find a single authoritative resource to support this claim, so far. The most recent taxonomic study I can find that discusses this genus is this one: Robertson IAD. The Pyrrhocoroidea (Hemiptera – Heteroptera) of the Ethiopian region. Journal of Insect Science. 2004;4:14. [1] in which angolensis is listed as a separate species from sexpunctatus, and it is treated there as unrecognized (no specimens known to the author). If the two names are synonyms, then sexpunctatus is 70 years older, and has nomenclatural priority. In the absence of any authoritative publications establishing the validity of the name angolensis, I intend to fix the affected WP articles to reflect the current understanding based on the primary literature; "iSpot" is not a sufficiently reliable source to contradict Richardson's revisionary work. That being said, I'll still give the benefit of the doubt: if you can find and supply a link to a good reliable source for the use of angolensis (e.g., on the talk page for Probergrothius, where I will see it), please do let me know - I intend to wait several days before making the change, so you have some lead time to track something down. Dyanega (talk) 17:35, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

• Follow-up: thanks very much for your comments. If the two species are separate (and you apparently have evidence they are), then what needs to happen is for each species to have its own separate article in WP, with an explanation of the taxonomic confusion. If the work that clarifies this is published (you mentioned Sudakaran et al.), then it needs to be cited explicity; WP has strict policies regarding the need for published source material. As it stands, the two articles are essentially fused into one, with the link and title being sexpunctatus, while the text refers to angolensis. This is confusing, and at the very least needs to be modified a little so readers will understand precisely what the problem is. I do have one other question: the Richardson paper makes explicit reference to two "color forms" of sexpunctatus, and from his description it sounds like one of those color forms is angolensis. Would you agree with this? If so, the question is whether the genetic evidence that you refer to (that the two taxa are distinct) is compelling, or has been corroborated (e.g., by mating experiments or careful genitalic preparations) - my concern is that it seems unlikely that Richardson would have access to specimens of both taxa and conclude they were just color forms unless he had evidence backing it up. Geographic distance can certainly correlate with genetic distance across the range of a single species, after all, and there are increasing numbers of studies showing that certain genes (especially COI "barcodes") do not always correlate with species boundaries. Regardless, for the time being, there is a need to draft two separate articles for angolensis and sexpunctatus - did you want to do this, or shall I? Dyanega (talk) 16:46, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

• In response to the "two color forms," I have scratched my head over that one for a while because there are no pictures that show the differences between the two (nevermind color photos!). I wondered the same thing... whether one was sexpunctatus and the other angolensis, but I really can't say. Even within the welwitschia bug (in my lab colony), I've seen some that are more reddish or blackish. I think you're right that geographic distance would correlate with genetic distance, so I don't know how reliable the Sudakaran paper is for confirming the separate species... they used CO1, CO2, and 18S, but I don't know how many specimens of each 'species' were included. For my purposes, I'm just studying the bacterial symbioses of the welwitschia bug, but I also want to get the taxonomy right. I will be meeting with the specialist, Dr. Deckert, whom I mentioned in my previous message, next month. He assures me that the welwitschia bug is P. angolensis, but it will be very interesting to sit down and talk with him about what he knows (also show me specimens of the different species). I would be very grateful if you could create the P. angolensis and sexpunctatus pages and I will edit them on my free time. I am also currently active on inaturalist.org and am hoping to get locality information on the species, so I'm trying to get the Probergrothius species sorted over there as well. Adamjmtz (talk) 21:33, 24 October 2016 (UTC)