Taxonomy question

[Padfield]

Ford defines one usage of the word 'form'. But the fact remains that there is equivocation. Helice and valesina, for example are not potential subspecies. They are not characteristic of local populations but forms that may present themselves in widely separated and evolutionarily divergent breeding communities. As mentioned before, some 'forms' (for example, prorsa and levana) predate specific, let alone subspecific divergence.

I guess we have to live with the equivocation, unless we decide to rewrite the lexicon ourselves (which is generally a bad idea). If 'form' is to be used of local, cladal, populations, I would prefer a different word - perhaps 'morph' (which goes nicely with 'dimorphic'), or maybe 'phase', as used by birders - to be used for recurrent morphological diversity that cuts across the phylogentic tree. But as it is, history has left us one word, 'form', which means at least two quite different things.

GUy

[Susie]

"Blah blah blah pretty picture blah blah description blah"

I'm sure that's how some members actually view the website

Yup

[Pete Eeles]

I completely agree, Guy. It's a real shame that we only have that one term, since its usefulness becomes diluted when used for (at least) two completely different phenomena.

Cheers,

- Pete

[Pete Eeles]

I've provided an attempt at clarifying on the taxonomy page: http://www.ukbutterflies.co.uk/taxonomy.php

Cheers,

- Pete