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Post by wollastoni on Mar 21, 2016 14:23:39 GMT
Euphaedra isn't far behind with 245 currently recognized species True But if you add ssp. into the account, Delias living in mountainous and/or island related area of the world, then the number of taxa totally explodes for Delias. This is the pleasure of a Delias collection : impossible to complete so you can try all your life.  If someone needs it, I have an updated checklist of all known Delias taxa (checklist originally created by Fred Gerrits and updated by myself). Most Delias collectors are using this checklist, just PM me if you need it. And about moth genera being larger than the Delias genus : which one and has it been proved that they are monophyletic ? |
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Post by africaone on Mar 21, 2016 15:07:11 GMT
Euphaedra are far to be completed and it not fair to compare genera that are continental and those specialised in island distribution (that split easily each species ou group)
Anyway, Charaxes sensu lato and Acraea (287 sp) are a very large genera and in Moths you find quite big genera.
on another way, genus is an artefact concept.
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Post by wollastoni on Mar 21, 2016 15:51:33 GMT
not fair to compare genera that are continental and those specialised in island distribution (that split easily each species ou group) True, life is unfair and genera from Oceanian/Indonesian islands have of course more possibility to split on another way, genus is an artefact concept Also true, but it remains a very interesting thing to study. BTW "species" can also be an artefact concept in some case. |
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Post by nomihoudai on Mar 21, 2016 15:51:42 GMT
Well as people wonder about moth genera, one of my favorite ones is Euxoa Hübner, 1821 and it currently has 263 species as far as I can see. Just as one example.
For Rhopalocera there is no match in Lycaenidae I think. The number of accepted Arhopala species is not that diverse, and this genus would probably need to be split up into several genera. Also 'the thing' that people usually refer to as Polyommatus is a conglomerate of very different (sub)genera, and each on their own has not too many species...and these are pretty much the most diverse in Lycaenidae. As Thierry says, genus is something very subjective and man made, so there is not too much of a point in fighting over it. Nevertheless it still is interesting to see how diverse some groups can be.
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Post by nomihoudai on Mar 21, 2016 15:59:27 GMT
Catocala Schrank, 1802 also has 265 species at the moment.
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Post by nomihoudai on Mar 21, 2016 16:21:04 GMT
on another way, genus is an artefact concept Also true, but it remains a very interesting thing to study. BTW "species" can also be an artefact concept in some case. Well I would beg to differ here, you can come up with very good species concepts of the reality that we observe in the nature. Yes, first of all we do have individuals, but then you can make out groups of individuals that will reproduce with high efficiency, and with less, or nothing at all with other groups. The boundaries are not always a 100% sharp, but they are observable to anybody. The whole discussion of taxonomy and species is not about if they exist or not, but on how to measure them best. I could go on forever on this subject now, but maybe it would just be best to pick up a book. I can recommend speciation by Coyne & Orr. The whole purpose of their first chapter, of more than 10 pages, is simply to illustrate that species is the only objective unit in taxonomy. With genera it's a different story. You get the whole history and past of your groups of species, and you can regroup them in many different ways, depending on what you like best. The whole subjectivity is best shown in the arbitrariness of splitting that very often is done by pure discussion, sometimes because genera "become too large to handle". One good example for this would be Anolis, a type of lizard. I was just checking up a few things on wikipedia, the biggest genera in insects seem to be in Hymenoptera, Lasioglossum (+- 1700) and Andrena (+- 1300). In flowers you can have up to 3000 species! (Astragalus) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_genera_of_flowering_plants |
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Post by wollastoni on Mar 21, 2016 16:34:35 GMT
What I meant is that Mayr's concept of species as generally accepted and as described in your post doesn't work for some living creatures.
Bacteria being a good example.
You will find plenty of fascinating articles about bacterial speciation.
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Post by nomihoudai on Mar 21, 2016 17:03:43 GMT
You will find plenty of fascinating articles about bacterial speciation. Let's agree to stick to multicellular organisms that reproduce by sex, lol. |
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Post by cabintom on Mar 21, 2016 18:42:06 GMT
Thierry mentioned Acraea, which is a genus I had thought of mentioning, but many are dividing it into 2 genera now Acraea and Telchinia... and I believe in the past it was divided even more. Is there any debate like this surrounding Delias?
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Post by deliasfanatic on Mar 21, 2016 19:08:08 GMT
Not really; there were some small attempts in the past, but everyone these days seems to accept it as one genus.
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