Earwig taxonomy

An entirely inexpert voice here, so very happy to be corrected! 

A little worrying that all earwigs in the UK are being labeled as such, as we have a number of other species, not just the common one… 

There has long (at least from the 1960’s I seem to recall but cannot currently put my finger on a source……) been some acceptance that Forficula auricularia is a species complex of a number of cryptic species, in this paper https://academic.oup.com/zoolinnean/article/190/3/788/5894910?login=false, a number of species, including F. dentata, are established on the basis of genetic characteristics. While F. dentata has been established as present in the UK, I don’t think that there has been any large scale work to establish that it is the only member of the species complex in the UK, very keen to be corrected if otherwise. Theres a big differences in being able to say that a member of a species complex is present in the UK, to this being the only member on the complex in the UK, that might be able to justify a morphological 

I think that the situation remains that F. dentata is only diagnosable on genetics and is not presently on morphology. I’d be surprised if many iNaturalist records have the barcoding to establish the species, so remain as F. auricularia agg.  

I think iRecord relies on the UK Species Inventory for the list of available species, which appears not to have listed F. dentata, or to have recognised F. auricularia as an aggregate.  The UKSI moves in mysterious ways and is not transparent in its reasoning for anything and is frankly mysterious about getting anything updated. 

I think there is a bigger issue about how iRecord, via the UK Species Inventory, handles species aggregates and evolving species concepts as there are, I think, at least some inconsistency about how the issue is handled, likely as a result of differing approaches between recording schemes and practices between differing domains of life. 

It’s unfortunate that iRecord doesn’t presently have a facility to submit the results of barcoding. 

It sounds like there’s been a push on iNaturalist to use Forficula dentata for UK earwig records, but since this name isn’t recognized in iRecord’s taxonomy, it's causing issues with data syncing. I’d recommend checking with the UK Species Inventory team, as they handle updates to the taxonomy used by iRecord. You could also reach out on the iRecord Forum to see if there’s an existing thread or update on this, or if anyone has insight on whether this naming change is officially accepted in the UK community. The iNaturalist Forum may also have relevant discussions if this has been previously addressed.

I’ve noticed the trend too and it’s intriguing. I believe the UK community is still adapting to this name change, and it's crucial to keep everyone informed. If Forficula dentata gains acceptance, it would definitely impact the iRecord taxonomy. I’m keen to see how this evolves, and I’d appreciate any updates from those more in the loop. Let’s hope for clarity soon!

You guys mentioned the UK Species Inventory (UKSI) process being slow. Has anyone here been able to contact the national recording scheme (like the Orthoptera Recording Scheme) or a UKSI editor directly to formally submit the request to update the taxonomy based on the González-Miguéns et al. (2020) paper?

Whilst I appreciate that the majority of the above comments are LLM-generated spam, the relevant aggregate is now in the UKSI and should be available on iRecord within the next month or two (UKSI updates have been slowed by internal IT security workflow, but we hope to move to a biannual UKSI update schedule soon.