Spindasis Change to Cigaritis

Thanks. I am just fed up with having to change at least 30 pages on my website every time someone proposes the change one way or another. The same goes for Riodinidae (family) and Riodininae (subfamily of Lycaenidae)!

Which is one reason I usually don't react when someone "publishes" something new or claims to have new information. ICZN and IUCN, unfortunately, do not really coordinate the taxonomic naming convention, nor is the authority to vet and approve papers. So there are publications and papers that are used to change this and that, but then you find other scientists blasting the credibility or challenging the conclusions at the same time.

Sunny quoted a case where a group of "experts" keep quoting a "forthcoming" book, which gives them the authority to make changes to species/subspecies levels of butterflies, but that forthcoming book has been in the oven for the past 3 years already and hasn't seen the light of day yet. But the "experts" are already making changes to the taxonomic nomenclature as though the entire scientific world has endorsed their invisible book.

I think the whole argument here is somewhat like that for Polyura & Charaxes.

DNA & cladistic studies have shown Polyura belongs to a group in the African Charaxes.
If Polyura is to be retained as a separate genus, than the African members of this group (currently in Charaxes) must likewise be placed in Polyura.
This will certainly not be to the liking of many who viewed them (the African species) as closely related to the others.

DNA studies should help in deciding whether these three genera be united.

TL Seow ::cheers:

Just to update this thread again, we have decided to retain the genus name Spindasis for the Silverlines in our Asian region. Based on Dr Kirton's book from pages 164 - 170, we will retain this as the latest relevant taxonomic classification for butterflies until some new published papers indicate otherwise.