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New Guide Pages for two subspecies of Cicindela

New Guide pages please for Cicindela hirticollis couleensis (http://bugguide.net/node/view/501498)
Cicindela tranquebarica borealis (http://bugguide.net/node/view/501497).

Thank you very much!

Ross C. Winton

i posted a comment here and invited the colleagues via e-mail

Done
Images moved to new pages.

 
not sure page creation was warranted
the status of these forms appears to be of little, if any, taxonomic significance -- see, e.g., Dan Duran's comment here. In his recent personal note he reiterates, "I can say that as an evolutionary biologist who is currently studying phylogeography and speciation in tiger beetles, there is no evidence yet to support any of the subspecies designations. All data (in ~10 species looked at so far) have shown genetic patterns that were incongruent with taxonomic subspecies."
I suggest moving the images to species level and avoid creating sspp. pages until such time as those matters have been resolved with adequate taxonomic rigor.

 
Sorry.
The contributor seemed to have specialized experience with the relevant taxa... but I guess that doesn't necessarily equal taxonomic expertise.

Feel free to "uncreate" the pages in question. :)

 
done...
...but boy do we have a lot more of those 'subspecies' to abolish...

 
Another reason
I didn't hesitate to create the new pages. I think I count 39 of them under Cicindela alone!

 
yeah...
that's what i'm talking about.
i always feel uneasy about making pages for infraspecific taxa, but sometimes i do, too --and there is no guarantee i haven't done so in the cicindeline section in my earlier days [hope not], that would be embarrassing...

 
No guarantee, indeed...
Behold

;-)

 
;-)
must deal with the problem as a whole.
rearranging the section means massive image hauling/relocation; i'll invite the tigerists & other stakeholders to discuss the situation on the forum. we'll have to add sound reference and try to maintain consistency of the changes. if any well-defined phenotypes exist, we can make 'no-taxon' pages for them -- provided there is an agreement re: what is what; otherwise, i would suggest keeping all the variants at species level.

 
More work needed . . .
I completely agree with the previous posts in that there is little taxonomic value of the subspecies or geographic variants but they can be a good way to describe variations within a species in some cases. I think that many groups like the Cicindelines (Buprestids, most of the Papilionoid Lepidoptera) are attempting to recover from the overly rigorous and overly detailed taxonomic descriptions of the last 100 years. I think that the work that Dan and many others are attempting to do will pave the way to a new era of taxonomy. We cannot however look to molecular data alone to answer all of these questions. There has been alot of great morphological work completed in these groups that should not be discounted. Groups like the tiger beetles and metalic wood boring beetles are perfect groups to start fusing the morphologic and molecular as we have alot of material out there and an interest in the community. Can't wait to see Dan's published work when it comes out!

 
The taxonomy of Cicindela hir
The taxonomy of Cicindela hirticollis has not been revised. Until such a time as it is revised it seem to me the subspecies are still valid. Since we have pages for 4 other (equally valid or invalid) subspecies I suggest we strive for consistency and treat couleensis and others that may crop up the same way and give them their own pages. A few people griping on the internet does not constitute revision...yet. ;-)

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