Other arthropods?

question about rankings

There may be a more up to date discussion relating to this, but I haven't located it. This discussion seems to have ended some months back with the addition of Crustaceans.

First the main reason for this posting. I notice that Myriapods and Crustaceans are listed as "subphylla", but Arachnids and Horseshoe Crabs are listed as Classes equal to the Classes of "former" insects. Somehow this seems out of ballance, and not quite presented correctly. I think it might need attention. If for some reason Arachnids are equal to and to be grouped with Proturans and other hexapods, this needs some explanation.

Of course I still opt for suborders within class Insecta for all the split out hexapods that used to be included. And, in my mind Crustacea and Myriapoda will always be classes, not subphylla. This never ending shifting of taxa upward and creation of new rankings between phyllum, class, and order to accomodate them all, as newer rankings are also crammed in lower down, seems a bit twisted to me. A class and order should in my mind continue to represent basically what they always have. The layers of rankings are getting so crowded that they are loosing meaning, are confusing, and they are also used very inconsistently from group of animals to group, and from author to author.

Mmm - sorry about the little rant there; didn't mean to do that, it just flowed from the previous. However, I'll go ahead and leave it in for the moment (I suppose it might get locked in if I do - oh well :0).

Now, a quick 2 cents worth on why I mostly agree with having added Crustaceans. I would have likely thrown in with Chuck, had I found this discussion earlier.
1) Most lay-people (do people still use that term?) don't have a clue what makes an Insect an Insect and a Crustacean a Crustacean. They just want to identify a "bug", and it seems a bit prejudicial to me for us to say that we won't try, just because it has 10 legs instead of 6 or 8 (and we DO look at aquatic insects and a few other odd ends). It's really difficult to find any literature (or web pages) to identify most Crustaceans. If I want to identify the species of "Crawdad" that crawled into my back yard and dug holes in my lawn, how on Earth do I go about it? I personally don't have a clue, I've never been able to do it in most of the country. There are a few regional treatments that cover some groups, but they are hard to find and limited in scope. It would be great to have these species appear here in what is turning into one of the best, if not the best on-line reference to Arthropods on the planet.
2) There aren't particularly many species of these things. It should be a drop in the bucket compared just to the number of insect taxa added to the site every year.
On top of that, odds are low that many photos of species from deep water (oceanic or fresh) will start comming in, simply because not many people are down there looking at them. Most that are, are professionals and won't likely be referencing BugGuide. Of course there may be some deep water camera enthusiast that finds us, but still, I doubt it would be overwhelming.
3) Several Insect groups on BugGuide still have no "experts" to identify the photos, and just a few years back there were a lot more such groups. I suspect that it's as likely (or more so) that somebody will "find" us and start helping with identifications as it was/is with many other group.

So, that's my late support and rationale added.

… David J. Ferguson, 12 July, 2010 - 11:39am

Rankings

Treating Chelicerata, Hexapoda, Myriapoda, and Crustacea as subphyla seems to be the prevailing view these days (see, for instance, ITIS and Wikipedia). These subphyla and what they include are summarized in the "remarks" section of the Arthropoda guide page. At first we just had the Crustacea guide page, and then I created the Myriapoda guide page because I thought it would be nice to have a page explaining how to distinguish the four myriapod classes. I would fully support doing the same for Hexapoda and Chelicerata (the latter more because I think it's fascinating that horseshoe crabs are related to arachnids than because anyone would have trouble distinguishing them), but hadn't done so because I anticipated an outcry about the addition of still more "unnecessary" rankings, which I didn't feel like dealing with. Maybe this wouldn't bother people as much as the suborders, superfamilies, etc. do--I don't know how many people are in the habit of starting with Arthropoda and navigating through the taxonomy to get to the page they want.

Regarding your point #1, the same logic could be applied to all invertebrates. We regularly get postings of slugs, worms, etc., because the general public thinks of all invertebrates as "bugs." If we were to allow all invertebrates, I don't think we would be inundated any more than we have been with the addition of crustaceans. Since there is no accessible BugGuide-like website devoted to these animals (that I know of), I think BugGuide would be the best venue for promoting knowledge and appreciation of them--especially since they would likely not be able to carry a website on their own, without the help of all the charismatic insects and such.

… Charley Eiseman, 12 July, 2010 - 12:12pm

Mixed feelings

about adding other subphylla names. I think we should be consistent, so that if there are two subphylla, the other two subphylla should definitely be there too. The reservations come purely from my personal opinions about rankings already mentioned, and consistency is most important. I assume it is easy (the classes can just be moved into them as is - correct?). I know that for my kids (and me) it would make more sense.

I also have mixed feelings about including other invertabrates (but would not object myself). Worms are related to Arthropods (well, at least some of them), but Mollusks are not. Arthropod is at least an easily delimited grouping; easy place to draw a line. There aren't many things that can't be instantly recognized as an Arthropod or not. However, on the flip side, You are correct, my logic can be extended to all of those other groups quite easily (honestly I didn't even think about them), and your point about "bugs" is true. I often see lists that have "animals" as a category including only things with a backbone (sometimes only Birds and Mammals), and the other things listed separately as if they are not animals at all. I don't have a "feel" for how it would affect the numbers to include non-arthropod invertabrates, because I don't know them well enough (I don't have a clue how many species are included in all the various groups, but I know it is small compared to Insects + Arachnids). I've often wondered how they manage to host this (has to be) huge and ever-expanding database at Iowa State so well.

… David J. Ferguson, 12 July, 2010 - 12:28pm

New guide pages

I have made guide pages for all the inland crustaceans that were in "Bug-like Creatures Not Covered By BugGuide," and have moved the images accordingly. These vary in the amount of information included, so please add onto them if you find good resources. I left the coastal amphipods and isopods alone for now, pending further discussion here. If we go ahead with expanding to all marine species down to low tide or so, I've got several images of crabs etc. and will make guide pages for them.

… Charley Eiseman, 9 November, 2009 - 1:44am

Expansion

My own opinion is that as long as we have the willingness of people to handle submissions and create guide pages, we should expand. I doubt that the ID Request page is going to be flooded by marine arthropods. It's more likely that it will be a once-in-a-while occurrence. I think that since we have some hands on deck, we should go ahead with it and revisit the issue in six months' time. I think the greatest concern is the overloading of the incoming queue (currently the ID Request page) with blurry or out-of-scope images. Maybe that will happen, maybe not. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, I say! If we do become overwhelmed, we can respond by reducing scope, having smarter queueing, or a combination of both.

… John VanDyk, 8 November, 2009 - 9:25pm

My next 2 cents

I would like to suggest the following:

All arthropods found on land and in fresh water should be allowed and encouraged, as should marine species that spend at least some time on land.

Marine species that live on the shore below the low-tide line should be allowed, but not encouraged, and those that are independent of the shore/tidal areas should be discouraged and/or frassed.

… Chuck Entz, 7 November, 2009 - 5:50pm

Refinement:

In the guide:
All arthropods found on land and aquatic species found inland.
All arthropods living on the shore, whether above or below the low-tide line.

Not in the guide:
Marine arthropods living independent of the shore

… Chuck Entz, 8 November, 2009 - 10:29pm

Intertidal zone

I agree with including the entire intertidal zone. High and low tide lines are very tricky. “High tide” varies by the day, month, and year, as do mean and low tide levels. Each of these lines plays a role in structuring communities, and therefore determining which species will be found. This is the background upon which a classic publication in arthropod ecology is founded: Connell ’s 1961 study of barnacle distribution within tidal zones. For example, adults of Chthamalus stellatus are found “between the levels of mean high water of neap and spring tides.”

Because of this variability, allowing inclusion of species that are not definitively intertidal is also appropriate. These are intensely disturbed habitats and the call between opportunistic colonization and established species is probably a hard one to make. If there are hundreds of excellent images of unidentified crabs that are stored away in Brachyura, eventually a crab-enthusiast will find them and join in, or else a BugGuide regular will take on the challenge. BugGuide has already dealt with much bigger problems than what I anticipate from the marine arthropods, if only because the specimens are generally underwater where quality live photographs are much harder to acquire.

Today I picked up a book on the identification of Louisiana mudbugs (aka crayfish to most of you).

… John Carlson, 7 November, 2009 - 11:03pm

There's a pretty good online reference:

at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. If we go through with this, I would nominate it as our default taxonomic reference for crayfish

… Chuck Entz, 8 November, 2009 - 12:08am

I like it

That sounds good. It takes most of the subjective arguing over "where on the beach it was found" out of the issue. Can we also discourage and/or frass all "I got this at the supermarket - what is it" postings. I don't think we need people posting their dinner right before it hits the boiling water.

… John R. Maxwell, 7 November, 2009 - 5:56pm

Anti-crab faction

I think the diving expedition will be more distraction than useful.

If the rest want this, can we have, say, 10 experts and pictures of 100 species with guide page text lined up in advance to seed the tree before we start creating any pages. That is to make sure the non-bug part is not merely an afterthought and also to find out how much interest is "somebody else should do this" and how much is "I will do this and I have photographed 30 species and written 40 guide pages in advance to prove it."

I also think splitting ID request will be useful -- one for terrestrial bugs and one for wet critters. (I will assume the expansion is independent of whether BG2 happens.)

… John F. Carr, 7 November, 2009 - 4:30pm

BG 2.0

We continue to make progress on it every week. But yes, expansion is not dependent on it. But our options for slicing and dicing submissions (tagging, sorting, filtering) greatly increase with 2.0.

… John VanDyk, 8 November, 2009 - 9:29pm

. . .

Taxonomically it makes sense to include all arthropods. Prgmatically it may be more than we can handle. Charley's proposal of setting a limit above the tide mark sounds like a good temporary compromise. I am sure that it will create problems eventually. Also, eventually, we'll have to deal with such problems and expand to all arthropods.
The lack of experts shouldn't be a serious concern; we already have groups where there has been a complete lack of experts until somebody came along and performed miracles. A case in point is the Ichneumons that piled up for five years until just a month ago, when Bob Carlson came along. The same thing will happen for other groups.
In summary, I vote YES.

… Beatriz Moisset, 5 November, 2009 - 6:26pm

YES

...for the very reasons succinctly formulated above by Beatriz.

… v belov, 6 November, 2009 - 8:39am

Any further discussion?

I'm itching to create guide pages for the non-isopod freshwater crustaceans, but I want to make sure there is general agreement that this is okay. In reviewing the comments below (a small sample of the BugGuide community), it seems the general mood ranges from neutrality to enthusiastic support. Past discussions (such as the links Harsi collected below) have typically involved non-editor contributors wishing we would include other arthropods, with the editors split in their opinions--although those that speak up in opposition often refer to some past (and apparently undocumented) consensus rather than explicitly stating their own opposition. Should I solicit the input of John VanDyk and/or Troy Bartlett? It seems to me that the number of images / guide pages this would add is extremely small and doesn't really warrant making much of a fuss about, but please speak up if you feel differently--or if you agree and haven't said anything yet. I'm hoping we can get a critical mass of opinions here, one way or the other.

… Charley Eiseman, 5 November, 2009 - 2:56am

YES

YES!
I'm still in favor of including ALL arthropodan subphyla, terrestrial and freshwater.
Well, lets not forget our inland saltwater organisms. Some I recall observing, but never had the opportunity to photograph:
Artemia monica, Artemia franciscana, Branchinecta spp. (mostly freshwater, but some tolerate highly alkaline, saline water, i.e. B. campestris), etc.
I can imagine someone trying to photograph bees frequenting vernal pools (i.e. Andrena (Diandrena) submoesta, Andrena (Hesperandrena) limnanthis), and perhaps adding shots of some tadpole shrimp.

… Hartmut Wisch, 6 November, 2009 - 11:00am

And of course...

good old Ephydra brine flies. It would be quite silly if we decided to exclude those!

… Charley Eiseman, 6 November, 2009 - 11:04am

Of course, Charley!

Several spp. in the Great Basin, plus the Ephydrids (E. bruesi, Paracoenia turbida) in Yellowstone. The list could go on...

… Hartmut Wisch, 6 November, 2009 - 4:37pm

Flies are covered now

Aquatic insects and spiders are included as representatives of predominantly terrestrial taxa.

The point about "freshwater" is a valid one, though- perhaps a better term would be "inland aquatic species"

… Chuck Entz, 7 November, 2009 - 11:52pm

I'm ok with it

but it would be nice to find a few experts (aka. malacologists) to help organize the section if it gets launched. I have some but rather limited experience with identifying freshwater crustaceans through all that freshwater sampling I've done.
Just be aware that this is a very diverse and often difficult group (if including the planktonic groups like copepods, ostracods, cladocera, etc..), even in freshwater habitats.

… Tim Loh, 5 November, 2009 - 1:58pm

malacologists study molluscs

and i'm not sure the emerging consensus extends to these... does it?

… v belov, 6 November, 2009 - 4:51pm

oops

my bad...wrong word choice there..should be "carcinologist", "malacostracologist" or "crustaceologist"..sounds like words for a party conversation ;-)
Molluscs are indeed excluded from the guide.

… Tim Loh, 6 November, 2009 - 5:14pm

I assumed

those were people who study malacostracans, but apparently not. No, this discussion has been limited to arthropods, much as I would love to have BugGuide cover all invertebrates.

… Charley Eiseman, 6 November, 2009 - 5:12pm

I think

we are just saying that we would add more arthropods, somewhere between freshwater arthropods only, or maybe marine arthropods if they are out of the water, or any aquatic arthropod in the region we currently cover.

… John R. Maxwell, 6 November, 2009 - 4:56pm

Clarification for BG-covered marine forms

Does that include intertidal species? "Intertidal" meaning marine habitats that are periodically exposed to air and submerged underwater.

… Tim Loh, 6 November, 2009 - 5:43pm

Marine forms

My proposal was to exclude intertidal species that would never be found above the high tide line, but John is arguing (see discussion below) that this isn't as clear a line as it sounds, and that we should just go ahead and include all arthropods ("out to the nearest reef") so there's no ambiguity. Apart from Beatriz's comment (above) that we will eventually have to expand to include all arthropods, I think everyone else who has chimed in lately is only approving the "above high tide" idea. There seems to be unanimous support for this so far, but judging from older comments, less support for including intertidal taxa. I guess everyone might as well voice their thoughts on that issue too, so we can be clear where everyone stands.

… Charley Eiseman, 6 November, 2009 - 6:06pm

I'm not sure

why we would allow marine malacostracans but exclude other marine arthropods? Can anyone explain that?

… John R. Maxwell, 6 November, 2009 - 6:53pm

I'm still in favor of the idea...

Charley, I just added a post to the Editor's Forum encouraging people to review and comment on this post, in hopes that a few more opinions will be aired. I suspect that John VanDyk reviews that forum, but I don't think it would hurt for you to go ahead and also draft him an e-mail (if you haven't already) to solicit his thoughts on the subject. Moving forward with this plan would definitely mean a broadening of the scope that BugGuide has historically provided and it seems like he should be included in any such discussion.

… Harsi S. Parker, 5 November, 2009 - 11:38am

51/49

I'll vote ever so slightly "pro-crab" but will 100% fully support the IDing, creation, and maintenance of the guide pages if it is generally agreed upon and approved by the other editors. I would like to see them handled somewhere in a professional manner, but worry about acquiring the expert IDs and shudder to think of all the blurry “through a murky pond” shots that will always make underwater photography a problem (but we already have some issues with this with aquatic insects so I don’t think that should stop us).

If it isn’t approved then I’ll 100% support the current “Frassing - Sorry BugGuide doesn’t cover these” status.

OK, maybe I’m slightly more in favor than 51%, put me down for 55.

… John R. Maxwell, 5 November, 2009 - 9:22am

Same here:-)

I agree with John. I think I would agree to "terrestrial and freshwater arthropods" coverage for Bugguide.

… Eric R. Eaton, 5 November, 2009 - 12:08pm

Freshwater vs. Marine - Slippery slope

We have a page for amphipods, but we place freshwater and marine amphipods on that page because "why have them in Bug-like Creatures Not Covered By BugGuide when we already have a page for amphipods". Maybe the real question is why have them either place. As soon as we have a page for freshwater shrimp and crabs will marine be too far behind?
Are we saying nothing marine and if so does that apply to all of the other images that have crept in?
As I hinted above, I wish we had a standard and everyone played by the rules and they applied to everyone and every photo no matter how interesting or who submitted it.

… John R. Maxwell, 5 November, 2009 - 2:17pm

A clear line

as I suggested earlier would be to include only species that "can be found (alive and happy) above the high tide line." I think you're right that there are a couple of images of fully aquatic marine amphipods/isopods that are currently in the guide and shouldn't be, according to this rule. I hadn't intended to include crabs, but I guess some do run around above the high tide line. What if we agreed to include close relatives of inland species that are found on beaches, but not beach fauna that are strictly marine? This would include some (rather "buglike") amphipods, but not crabs or shrimp (I don't think fairy shrimp are closely related to anything you'd find on a beach).

… Charley Eiseman, 5 November, 2009 - 2:52pm

I think

we should just include any arthropods out to the nearest reef. We say "A clear line" but we can't or don't enforce it now with what we currently cover. You either have to look the other way or you have hard feelings from the people you rely on for IDs. If we just open it up at least we don't have to waste time playing policeman. Who wants to argue how long species X can live out of water, or how close to the surf a "bug" as found?

… John R. Maxwell, 5 November, 2009 - 7:23pm

I'm completely fine with that

The only reason I came up with the "high tide line" idea is that there seemed to be much less support for including crabs, barnacles, etc., so I was trying to come up with a line most people could live with. I'm encouraged by Beatriz's suggestion above that this would be a temporary compromise, with the understanding that we'd likely expand to all arthropods eventually. I think we could open BugGuide to all arthropods now without creating an overwhelming problem, simply by creating a subphylum Crustacea to store these images, and encouraging people to post there directly for ID requests--anyone who doesn't want to be bothered with crustaceans could simply not look there. I'd be happy to take responsibility for managing crustaceans until someone more knowledgeable shows up to deal with them. But if the majority want to hold off on making that jump now for whatever reason, I'd rather go with the problematic tide line for now, erring on the side of leniency, than abandon the crustacean cause entirely.

… Charley Eiseman, 6 November, 2009 - 9:52am

My two cents -

I like the idea. I have zero expertise with these creatures and would agree with the prior comment that it would be nice to have some experts (at least one?) lined up to get the taxonomy "right" from the start and to help us out.

… Ken Schneider, 5 November, 2009 - 6:09pm

Drawing a logical line

I personally would like a site where ALL invertebrates are covered. The fact that we continually get submissions of crustaceans, slugs, hookworms, etc. indicates that these animals all count as "bugs" in the minds of some people. However, I know that this will never fly (even though I really don't think it would have much of an impact on the volume of images being submitted to ID Request), so I'm not going to argue for that.

However, I do think we need to draw a line that is logical, not arbitrary. I don't see how we can defend a decision to include terrestrial and freshwater isopods, and beach-dwelling amphipods (one of the very first pages Troy Bartlett created, incidentally), but not freshwater amphipods or other freshwater crustaceans. A logical, and defensible, line to draw would be inclusion of all terrestrial and freshwater arthropods, and those that can be found (alive and happy) above the high tide line. Admittedly, this would allow the inclusion of crayfish, which don't seem very buglike to me. Then again, they don't seem any less buggy than, say, scorpions.

I have no expertise to offer, but I will happily create guide pages for, and sort, images of any such creatures that are submitted.

… Charley Eiseman, 23 June, 2009 - 3:20pm

Mudbugs

FYI, in Louisiana, the common name for a crawfish/crayfish is mudbug.

… John Carlson, 23 June, 2009 - 3:54pm

Aha!

Well then, I retract my assertion that they may not be buggy enough.

… Charley Eiseman, 23 June, 2009 - 3:57pm

Well stated, Charley!

I find myself in agreement with pretty much everything that Charley said. As others have already expressed, I do have some questions as to whether there are currently any experts on this site who will be able to make qualified IDs for some of the new submissions we might allow, but I don't think that is a deal-breaker. There are currently several areas of this site which have yet to find the appropriate expert to make sense of all the accumulating images -- see the 14 pages of unidentified Thomisidae images as an example. Hopefully (as we have in the past), we will eventually attract such professionals to the site with the lure of increasingly high-quality images.

All things considered, I would put my vote in the "yes" column for the inclusion of (as Charley put it) "all terrestrial and freshwater arthropods, and those that can be found (alive and happy) above the high tide line". That being said, I definitely think that some input from John VanDyk is a necessity before this discussion can progress past the hypothetical point.

… Harsi S. Parker, 23 June, 2009 - 3:36pm

Aquatics experts

One variable to consider is the availability of “experts” that can reliably identify specimens. Aquatic entomology is a somewhat discrete branch of entomology. Aquatic insect ecologists are at the forefront of ecology research, and the field is generally inclusive of all aquatic arthropods. There are excellent resources available for general identifications, as well as specific groups that might be unfamiliar to most arthropod enthusiasts. As with certain terrestrial groups, there are aquatic groups that are notoriously difficult to identify, raising the possibility that some taxanomic levels could accumulate images that cannot be more definitively identified.

In addition, I don’t know how many current BugGuide users are willing to put in the time to make these identifications and organize guide pages, etc. If there are users currently willing and able to put in this work, expansion further into the world of aquatics seems like a good idea to me. If not, accumulation of images might attract aquatic entomologists to BugGuide, but perhaps at the cost of increased workload for those generalist BugGuide Editors that already put in a lot of time sorting and organizing. If no one agrees to take on the extra work, then I think it is understandable if the editors want to hold off on implementing this idea.

… John Carlson, 19 June, 2009 - 4:44pm

We already have some

non-hexapod subphyla of Arthropoda on bugguide: Chelicerata, Myriapoda, Crustacea (i.e. Malacostraca). I think it would be fascinating, and instructive, to have marine members of this fauna on bugguide. In terms of sheer numbers (i.e. computer capacity), if I recall correctly, non-insect arthropods make up less than 12% of the total number of arthropods.
My humour doesn't make everyone laugh, but here you go...
Not everybuggy is interested in every kind of bug but there's always somebuggy interested in some bugs you may not have thought of. So, 'On Beyond Zebra'.
What's a bug anyway?

… Hartmut Wisch, 19 June, 2009 - 11:55am

We asked Peter to move his comments

and thoughts here so we could again listen to the reasons pro and con for including pycnogonids or no. As we said on his image, we (J&J) don't have the expertise in software nor in pycnogonids to say whether they should be part of BugGuide. We're extracting from Eric's comment, that there are too many such marine arthropods and we currently don't have the expertise to help identify them. This makes it sound to us just like our 'decision' not to include bugs other than Nearctic, or continental North America north of Mexico.

Does that mean that this might be one of the sites generated as spin-offs of BugGuide as mentioned by John VanDyk earlier in the forums? If so, Peter, then it will have to wait until John finishes what he is in the middle of here, and it will probably take someone committed to working with John to get it off the ground.

But we don't want to jump the gun, and conclude that, based only on Eric's comment. We'll eagerly wait and listen to the reasons of others. Thanks, Peter, for moving your thoughts and concerns here.

… john and jane balaban, 17 June, 2009 - 6:08pm

We are

"hosted by Iowa State University Entomology", maybe that is the reason?

… John R. Maxwell, 17 June, 2009 - 4:44pm

Links to further the discussion...

I am still in the process of considering what I think about this interesting issue and will attempt to post my opinion once it has solidified, but for the sake of generating more thought and giving others some reference to draw from, I have compiled a list of links where the inclusion of aquatic arthropods has been discussed in the past:

http://bugguide.net/node/view/182671
http://bugguide.net/node/view/284372
http://bugguide.net/node/view/261176
http://bugguide.net/node/view/281848
http://bugguide.net/node/view/88458
http://bugguide.net/node/view/15740
http://bugguide.net/node/view/214332

Please also see the statement under "Remarks" on this Info page:
http://bugguide.net/node/view/42422

[NOTE: I have seen it stated in multiple places that a "decision" had been made long ago to forgo such images on the site, but I have yet to find any reference on the site to something that definitive and concrete. By my estimation, there has been as much support for the inclusion as there has been argument for the exclusion. If anyone knows of other discussions or pertinent information on the site which I have missed, could you please point me there? Thanks.]

… Harsi S. Parker, 17 June, 2009 - 10:34am

I think I was the first to bring it up

I'm not sure if there was an explicit "decision" to exclude aquatic arthropods, but in our community-based decision model any new initiative requires more than lack of widespread opposition- it requires a consensus that it's ok.

My inquiry resulted in a combination of little affirmative interest and some opposition. When I wrote the text on the "Bug-like Creatures Not Covered By BugGuide", I framed the limit on aquatics as "for now, at least", because the response wasn't a decisive "no"- it was more of a "we'd rather not get into that right now."

… Chuck Entz, 21 June, 2009 - 4:01pm

Don't open the door to marine fauna.

I think the basic problem is that including crustaceans in particular opens the door to ocean fauna. No way I want to see that here, and I'll venture I'm in the majority opinion. Someone could start "TideGuide.net" and I'd go visit that...:-)

… Eric R. Eaton, 17 June, 2009 - 3:00pm

Ocean Fauna

Why not?

… Peter Bryant, 17 June, 2009 - 4:04pm

Why not:

That gets us into a completely different set of species with radically different biology, ecology, etc. Not only that, it erodes our geographical limits by opening the door to worldwide pelagic species that happen to drift into our area.
Although we have a few marine species already, those are (or should be) only those that live at least part of the time on land. A few exceptions for consistency's sake is a lot different than throwing out all limits. There are enough people interested in marine biology that we could easily get inundated with new submissions that we're not ready for.

As for the topic at hand: I see no reason not to include the rest of the freshwater arthropods. Those are relatively few in number and limited in the number of people who would be inquiring about them. I think the challenges inherent in underwater photography should limit the submissions to a manageable number.
I suspect, also, that some of our experts in mayflies, etc. may also be knowledgeable about freshwater crustaceans.

… Chuck Entz, 21 June, 2009 - 3:42pm

I think

We already have marine Amphipods and Isopods in the guide.

… John R. Maxwell, 17 June, 2009 - 3:31pm