[Taxacom] large animal genera

[Peter Rauch]

Hmmm.  So why are these (and other) genera so large ?   :>)

-- No splitters among those taxonomists ?  (Do those large genera have an
abundance of "subgenera" (or whatever other groupings might have been
discerned) ?)

--Too many splitters among those taxonomists --there really aren't that
many "species" in those genera ?

-- They're insects --what more explanation is needed ? (Aside from insects,
what other groups of animals [might] have such large genera ? Felix
mentioned one mite genus.)

-- It's just an illusion --once we classify all the world's animals, we'll
find many more large genera ? Or, once we look closer at these known large
genera, we'll discover that they are really divisible into many new genera
(relates to the first question above, I suppose) ?

-- Other reasons ?

Peter


On Mon, May 25, 2015 at 11:40 PM, Doug Yanega <dyanega at ucr.edu> wrote:

> On 5/25/15 10:55 PM, Felix Sperling wrote:
>
>> What animal genera have more than 900 species? I'm hoping to find out how
>> unusually species-rich the water mite genus Arrenurus is.
>>
>> Reply to Heather Proctor at hproctor at ualberta.ca.
>>
>>  Nomada has around 900, Cerceris has around 1030, and Lasioglossum has
> about 1050 (depending on how you define it), Andrena has around 1060, but
> Agrilus puts them to shame, at over 3000. Goodness knows how one should
> deal with Cicindela and Carabus.
>
> Peace,
> --
> Doug Yanega      Dept. of Entomology       Entomology Research Museum
> Univ. of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0314     skype: dyanega
> phone: (951) 827-4315 (disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
>              http://cache.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html



> ...
>