Symphyta

This raises some issues

"No taxon" is used both for formally recognized, monophyletic taxa not belonging to a standard rank (e.g., Aculeata, all subgenera) and for informal paraphyletic taxa. It would be better if informal taxa could be recognized as such in a different category. It would also help if additional ranks such as subgenera were recognized nodes so as to reduce the number of "no taxon" pages.

If Symphyta is capitalized and lacks quotes it would seem to be equivalent to Aculeata, whereas we would prefer to convey that only the latter is currently regarded as a formal taxon (clade).

… John S. Ascher, 9 February, 2011 - 9:36pm

We have not enough knowledge to know if renaming the

page would be good or not. We seem to remember that this was discussed in the forums a couple years ago when all the pages were set up under Hymenoptera. But wanted to say that edit appears on the Info pages. Go to the page you want to change. Click the INFO tab and scroll down to edit. There may be more than one place on the page where you have to make changes, scientific and common names.

… john and jane balaban, 10 January, 2011 - 2:42pm

Thanks.

I'll leave this alone for now, but maybe we want to put all the "Symphyta" larvae under the "unidentified sawfly larvae" page?

… Eric R. Eaton, 12 January, 2011 - 10:16pm

They all end up there eventually...

if they remain unidentified. I think the idea is to give Dr. Smith an opportunity to look at them before they're put there?

Regarding the original subject of this forum post, what do people think of this solution? It seems stylistically consistent with what we've done with the flies here.

… Charley Eiseman, 22 January, 2011 - 8:46pm

that solution...

...sounds like a good compromise to me

… v belov, 22 January, 2011 - 8:49pm

Additional thought:

'parasitic Apocrita' could be changed to something like

"Parasitica" - Non-aculeate Parasitoid Wasps

to clarify that this is also a paraphyletic group.

… Charley Eiseman, 22 January, 2011 - 9:02pm

"Symphyta" is paraphyletic...

...and thus better not be treated as a taxon, but i, too, would prefer to have that page titled 'Symphyta' (the name still very much in informal use among the experts) rather than having the laundry list for a title

… v belov, 10 January, 2011 - 1:18pm