#catalogueoflife — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #catalogueoflife, aggregated by home.social.
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Given the ongoing discussions around how #iNaturalist should respond to a Google.org grant linked to generative AI, here is my personal story on why some web platforms remain precious to me.
Ten years ago, I thought biodiversity informatics (through @gbif, #CatalogueOfLife, #BarcodeOfLife, iNaturalist and a whole ecosystem of intersecting online efforts) was a real contribution we could make to delivering the #SustainableDevelopmentGoals.
Following Brexit, the subsequent US election, the handling of the pandemic, the obvious state capture of governments everywhere by fossil fuel and other extractive interests, etc., I realised the SDGs can probably not be delivered in our current political order.
I did however think we could still use the Internet and #FAIR data to deliver the tools that could help democratic processes to turn things round.
The rampant introduction of #LLM-based pseudo-information engines everywhere on the web has undercut even this restricted hope for what can be achieved. Everywhere, we are at risk of polluting what we know and believe to be true with truth-like, plausible or false supplements that can often only be recognised and separated at significant cost.
Over the last couple of years, I've come to see my focus for this stage of my life to be to do what I can to help maintain clean sources of data and information where provenance is well known and understood. There are fewer and fewer of these. For me, iNaturalist, COL, BHL, #Wikimedia and #InternetArchive have been at the top of the list.
Focusing on where I can actually "make a difference" has helped me to remaining grounded and to feeling life has some value in terrible times. My impression is that many are feeling something similar. iNaturalist is one of the last "real" places on the web, and we are scared that we will lose it and have to cross it of this very short list of human and genuine sites and communities that remain for us.
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Global #Lepidoptera Index updated. Feeds into #CatalogueOfLife & @gbif
https://www.checklistbank.org/dataset/55434/about
Complete update for #Apatelodidae and thousands of names updated in #Noctuidae
Names updated:
Noctuidae: 4787 Apatelodidae: 460 Erebidae: 338 Notodontidae: 25 Crambidae: 25 Pyralidae: 21 Autostichidae: 20 Pieridae: 20 Lycaenidae: 13 Riodinidae: 11 Nymphalidae: 7 Hepialidae: 7 Phiditiidae: 7 Zygaenidae: 7 Geometridae: 6 Nolidae: 6 Lasiocampidae: 5 Tortricidae: 4 Bombycidae: 4 Lypusidae: 3 Sphingidae: 2 Thyatiridae: 2 Uraniidae: 2 Yponomeutidae: 2 Limacodidae: 2 Oecophoridae: 2 Depressariidae: 1 Mimallonidae: 1 Hesperiidae: 1 Tineidae: 1
Major sources:
Ronkay et al. 2001, Hadeninae II
Hacker et al. 2022, Moths of Africa – Systematic and Illustrated Catalogue of the Heterocera of Africa, Volume 3 Acontiinae (Noctuidae) (Including Aediini Beck, 1960, Based on Traditional Treatment)
Ronkay et al. 2023, The Jacques Plante Noctuidae Collection. Part II. Amphipyrinae, Psaphidinae, Cuculliinae, Oncocnemidinae, Acontiinae, Pantheinae, Dyopsinae, Raphiinae, Acronictinae, Bryophilinae, Heliothinae, Condicinae & Xyleninae
Pohl et al. 2023, Annotated Taxonomic Checklist of the Lepidoptera of North America, North of Mexico
Orlandin et al. 2024, Systematics of Apatelodidae Neumoegen & Dyar, 1894 (Lepidoptera: Bombycoidea) based on molecular and morphological data, https://doi.org/10.1071/IS24041
Ronkay et al. 2017, Xyleninae I. The Agrochola generic complex
Volynkin et al. 2025, On the taxonomy of the genera Katha Moore, Tarika Moore, Cernyia Bucsek and Churingosia Volynkin & Černý, stat. n. with the description of a new genus and thirteen new species (Lepidoptera: Erebidae: Arctiinae: Lithosiini: Lithosiina), https://dx.doi.org/10.37828/em.2025.87.1
Fibiger et al. 2007, Amphipyrinae - Xyleninae
Hreblay et al. 1998, Noctuidae. In: Haruta, T. (Ed.), Moths of Nepal. Part 5., http://publ.moth.jp/special/Moths-of-Nepal-part-5.pdf
Volynkin et al. 2025, On the taxonomy of the Brunia Moore generic complex with the description of a new genus, a new subgenus and four new species (Lepidoptera: Erebidae: Arctiinae: Lithosiini: Lithosiina), https://dx.doi.org/10.37828/em.2025.87.2
Lafontaine et al. 2010, Review of the New World genera of the subfamily Acontiinae (Lepidoptera, Noctuidae), https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.39.427
Ronkay et al. 2011, Cuculliinae II and Psaphidinae
Hreblay et al. 1999, Neue trifide Noctuidae aus dem himalayanischen Raum und der südostasiatischen Region (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae)
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Major updates this month to #GlobalLepidopteraIndex:
Mimallonidae completely updated (127 additional #species) including all recent literature.
Notodontidae updated to new subfamily classification (https://doi.org/10.5479/si.28912337).
Genus Simplicia (Herminiinae) updated to match new revision (https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5631.3.2)
229 additional species (and hundreds of names and combinations) have been added this month.
These updates will flow into this month's #CatalogueOfLife and then into @gbif and other online platforms.
For more information, see:
https://www.checklistbank.org/dataset/55434/about
#taxonomy #biodiversity #entomology #Lepidoptera #classification #moths
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Created my first small (and not widely useful) repository on @Codeberg today. It's from the hackathon this week with @TaxonWorks to improve interoperability of taxonomic data tools.
The code is a small Python program to serialise #CatalogueOfLife data packages as a "tape" of objects that can be handled atomically in order by a processor in another tool. This is really just a first step towards more automation for the #GlobalLepidopteraIndex.
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Expanding the GBIF #HostedPortals programme in 3...2...1! 🚀
⭐ The #EuropeanJournalOfTaxonomy has become the first scientific journal to launch a GBIF hosted portal! ⭐
@plazi_species #CatalogueOfLife #ChecklistBank
🦎 Paratype of Cyrtodactylus chungi, Ostrowski et al., 2021
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I updated #CatalogueOfLife following a new paper from last Friday on the genus #Promalactis (small nicely marked #moths in #Oecophoridae):
https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5536.1.1
COL only had 78 listed species for the genus. The new paper referenced many other publications with new species in Promalactis, mostly from Asia. The count is now 447 species, with 372 first described in the years since 2000.
This will enhance #DataManagement in @gbif and other online platforms.
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An updated checklist of geometrid #moths (~14% of all moths) was published last year as the Online #Taxonomic Facility of #Geometridae
https://geometroidea.smns-bw.org/introduction
The data are now also in #ChecklistBank and will replace the current outdated #LepIndex list in #CatalogueOfLife, @gbif, etc.
I've also edited #Notodontidae in the @TaxonWorks Global Lepidoptera Index dataset at least to match Schintlmeister's 2013 catalogue (now handling later works):
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Just learned of another recently separated family of moths that I'd missed. #Pseudobistonidae now contains two species, one formerly classified as Lymantriinae and one as Geometrinae. The new family sits in the Geometroidea.
Firewalled (☹️ ) journal articles here from 2015 and 2019:
https://doi.org/10.1111/zsc.12108
https://doi.org/10.1111/syen.12326
I've updated the #GlobalLepidopteraIndex so it should be correct in #CatalogueOfLife and @gbif very soon.
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The family #Scranciidae has now been updated in the #GlobalLepidopteraIndex and is available in #ChecklistBank.
https://www.checklistbank.org/dataset/55434/taxon/235153
This classification should be included in next month's #CatalogueOfLife checklist and then be available to @gbif for organising occurrence data.
22 #genera, 122 #species, 11 #subspecies, 279 names in total:
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We've signed an agreement with #Species2000—the body responsible for the Catalogue of Life #catalogueoflife #COL—to serve as administrative host for its Secretariat, strengthening our collaboration on taxonomic data through COL, #ChecklistBank & elsewhere:
https://www.gbif.org/news/5LO3xYHTbo53rB8UwcSpgA/ -
Another update to Global Lepidoptera Index / #CatalogueOfLife / @gbif - the family #Psychidae (#bagworm #moths):
https://stangeia.hobern.net/updating-global-lepidoptera-index-for-psychidae/
The vast majority of names for this group in the old LepIndex dataset are no longer considered current. The update added 30% more accepted species for the family.
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Many thanks to Todd Gilligan, Joaquin Baixeras and John W. Brown for all their work on Tortricid.net. I've been working with them to get it into a form that can feed into #CatalogueOfLife and @gbif
This will be a major improvement for how data on leafroller #moths (#Lepidoptera #Tortricidae) are organised online. It's 25 years more current than LepIndex.
Browse or download here: