Talk:Aeshna

Query taxonomy

This list appears to be incomplete, omits species, (I put in isoceles), and has some wrong names. Blue Darner is an American species, A. multicolor, and I don't think it's a synonym of cyanea.

Why is the list alphabetical, and not in taxonomic order like other animal articles. (I've only written one dragonfly article, so i don't know enough to fix this myself). jimfbleak 07:21, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

List of species brought into line with International Dragonfly Fund and US common names to USGS-Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center . The following were REMOVED:

• A. brevistyla : now Adversaeschna
• A. coerulea : trivial synonym of A. caerulea
• A. cyanida : apparently a mistake for cyanea
• A. deffini : apparently a mistake for diffinis
• A. furcifera : synonym of A. multicolor
• A. isoceles : now Anaciaeschna
• A. ornithocephala : now Polycanthagyna

--Keith Edkins 15:48, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

• A. isoceles : now Anaciaeschna

I don't think this is correct. At least, all the references I have retain it in Aeschna and that includes Dijkstra, published 2005. The main page for the species has not been changed, and still shows it as aeschna. Harasseddad 09:20, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

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Fossil Species

@Monster_Iestyn I see you have added a bunch of fossil species to this page. Unfortunately, I don't think they belong here on this page. The genus Aeshna has been extensively split in recent years, and I don't think we can reasonably suggest that all these fossil species actually belong to the narrow circumscription unless we have a source saying so. Even some recent papers on fossil species seem to be totally unaware of this issue somehow. (e.g. https://hal.science/hal-03974702/file/GHBI-2022-0298_Proof_hi.pdf which seems to relying on older sources for identification criteria and makes zero mention of any of the new or revived genera) I really don't think these species should be included on this page unless we have a source that explicitly puts them in this circumscription, or otherwise explicitly links a fossil species to the species in Aeshna and not e.g. Rhionaeschna. Thoughts? Somatochlora (talk) 14:39, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

Trying again to notify you @Monster Iestyn: Somatochlora (talk) 14:40, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

Ah, sorry, didn't catch this until now. My only motivation for adding the fossil list was because one of them had already been added previously (Aeshna andancensis) so I thought I may as well add the full set, since there was no reason for only that one species to be listed and not the rest. If they all don't belong on the page at all though, fair enough, I wouldn't object to them being removed. Monster Iestyn (talk) 14:44, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

Sounds good (and sorry to waste your time!) Probably some of these could be referred to a specific genus based on available sources - for easy access here's a link to your latest revision and if I find the time I'll see if I can bring any of these back in. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Aeshna&oldid=1287179234 Somatochlora (talk) 14:51, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

@Somatochlora: No problem, and no need to worry about time being wasted! It was not a big deal for me anyway, I was just passing some time before an important phone call I had today.

Tbh I'm not surprised there are some issues in circumscription here; I've noticed in my own wiki travels that Anisoptera classification seems to be very different in paleoentomology (fossil species) than it is in neoentomology (living species), particularly because the paleo people apparently still rely on Günter Bechly's 1996 system, where e.g. Aeshnidae as understood on en.wiki is split up into five families (Aeshnidae, Telephlebiidae, Brachytronidae, Allopetaliidae and Gomphaeschnidae). It's as if there is some lack of communication altogether between the two groups of researchers or something? Monster Iestyn (talk) 15:59, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

@Somatochlora and Monster Iestyn: unless the moves out of Aeshna are at the placement of peer review or database sources, WE cant move them. Us making guesstimates as to what a current placement "might" be without a source that says it falls fully into OR / SYNTH territory, and us providing new interpretations not supported by a source. The fossil section can have explanatory prose about placement into the genus historically and modern taxon circumscriptions not addressing the fossil species. Monster_Iestyn your interpretation is correct, there is very little cooperation between paleo and neo Odonate workers, and much of that boils down to the complexity and questions the fossil record brings into odonate taxonomy compared to extant molecular and genitalia based phylogeny--Kevmin § 16:05, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

I get your point and agree that us placing these fossil species in any specific one of the split genera would be OR - but surely that applies to Aeshna too? The fact that the rules of nomenclature mean it has the same name doesn't mean it is in any sense the same concept. We have perfectly good sources to support the point that the genus circumscription as used on this page is completely different to that from when these species were named. I guess maybe the best we can do though is to include them on this page with some text explaining why that's problematic.

FWIW (and obviously not usable on Wikipedia), I emailed the author of the recent paper I linked above. They indeed feel that they do not have characters for these split genera that are usable on fossils, and do not intend to make any claim on where the species falls within these genera. I'm not really sure why they couldn't include a paragraph to that effect in the paper - seems slightly irresponsible to assign a species to a genus that you know is quite likely wrong, and not even mention that? Somatochlora (talk) 16:34, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

@Somatochlora (Re: author email response) That is a bit disappointing... though I get that the fossils may not have preserved characters useful for assignment to a modern genus, effectively that puts all of the so-called "Aeshna" fossil placements into question currently if I understand this right?

Speaking of questionable placements though, Nel et al. (1994) indicated that some of the listed "Aeshna" fossil species were in their view incertae sedis within Aeshnidae or even Anisoptera... should we be listing these species in the article? I already indicated which ones were considered incertae sedis, but to restate for here they are A. heterofasciata (an isolate abdomen), A. theobaldi (an isolate wing, apparently the description and figure conflict and conveniently the holotype itself is also missing), A. larvata (a larva fossil), A. paleocyanea and A. tyche. Though, some of the other fossil species they admit they're placing under "Aeshna sensu lato" or that their placement under Aeshna isn't certain.

(Awkwardly it seems Fossilworks/PBDB contributors may have missed these incertae sedis statuses and just listed them all under Aeshna rather than Aeshnidae or Anisoptera as Nel et al. (1994) suggested. Anyone know how I should contact PBDB's contributors to get things like this corrected? I've seen a number of problems like this on there that I want to contact them about at some point.) Monster Iestyn (talk) 20:52, 29 April 2025 (UTC)