Lepidoptera - taxonomy status on iNaturalist

... a quick update on how many butterfly and moth taxa are currently available on iNaturalist. Very many of these do not (yet) have any observations, particularly the ones from tropical regions. To do count species, I downloaded the entire taxon tree via DWCA export (https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/inaturalist-taxonomy.dwca.zip (file dated Nov 1st, 2023). The scientific names are in a very large file which I needed to split into smaller portions. Then I extracted Lepidoptera, but only species currently considered available. Note: there may be some unintentional duplication and taxa in debate. The result were 148,208 species worldwide, as compared to an estimated 180,000 described species of Lepidoptera. A family by family comparison gave the following results:

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Erebidae 22,353 25,000 89 %
Geometridae 24,041 23,000 105 %
Noctuidae 16,890 11,772 143 % --> estimated species # seems too low
Tortricidae 7,416 11,500 64 %
Crambidae 7,986 10,487 76 %
Nymphalidae 6,221 6,000 104 %
Lycaenidae 4,805 6,000 80 %
Pyralidae 4,329 6,000 72 %
Gelechiidae 4,007 4,700 85 %
Hesperiidae 3,926 4,100 96 %
Notodontidae 3,459 3,800 91 %
Oecophoridae 1,815 3,150 58 %
Saturniidae 3,576 2,300 155 % --> (not sure why this is)
Depressariidae 1,179 2,300 51 %
Lasiocampidae 1,559 2,130 73 %
Tineidae 1,795 2,000 90 %
Gracillariidae 1,780 2,000 89 %
Limacodidae 1,436 1,800 80 %
Nolidae 2,149 1,700 126 %
Cosmopterigidae 1,242 1,540 81 %
Riodinidae 1,430 1,532 93 %
Sphingidae 1,825 1,450 126 %
Lecithoceridae 722 1,430 50 %
Psychidae 959 1,350 71 %
Pterophoridae 1,200 1,292 93 %
Xyloryctidae 330 1,200 28 %
Pieridae 1,190 1,100 108 %
Coleophoridae 1,142 1,000 114 %
Sesiidae 1,101 1,000 110 %
Zygaenidae 723 1,000 72 %
etc.

complete list at https://inaturalist-open-data.s3.amazonaws.com/photos/334115363/original.jpg

Posted on 10 de novembro de 2023, 12:31 PM by amzamz