Talk:Northern corn rootworm

English names
Should the name disambiguation be done in a hatnote on the pages (D. barberi and D. longicornis)? Should this be a disambig but with different phrasing? I understand that is a tax and so objects to the way I used "common name" here but both are called NCR in actual usage. We should cover both official and agronomic terminology. Invasive Spices (talk) 10 December 2021 (UTC)


 * This is a case of a "deprecated" name, which is why I consider it important to adhere to the official usage of the name. That is, prior to 1967, no one realized that the "northern corn rootworm" was two different species. Diabrotica barberi was only recognized as a separate species in 1967, and represented the majority of the previous literature records, but under an incorrect scientific name, since longicornis referred to a species that was mostly southern in distribution. Continuing to apply the "northern corn rootworm" name to longicornis just makes it harder for people to figure out which species is the actual pest; the sooner people stop using that misapplication, the better - it's already been over 50 years, and it really needs to get fixed, so it's bad if Wikipedia exacerbates this. Dyanega (talk) 16:28, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Looking in more detail I do see the decline in literature over time that you're talking about. Nonetheless extensions persist in using NCR for longicornis almost exclusively. In any case I think we can agree that a "...formerly..." hatnote is justified on both pages? Invasive Spices (talk) 10 December 2021 (UTC)


 * Yes, if it is made clear that the name was formerly used for longicornis, but should not be continued as such, then I'd say that would be a reasonable compromise. Thanks. Dyanega (talk) 19:06, 10 December 2021 (UTC)