Talk:Apis cerana indica

Separate species

Accordinc to a recent research Apis indica is to be considered a separate species from Apis cerana. We should probably move this article to Apis indica and rewrite it accordingly. What do you say? --Exonie 17:50, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

The most recent research says exactly the opposite: that "indica" is a mishmash of genetic lineages within cerana, and not a single taxonomic entity at all. However, it is unclear whether, in the 10 years since the proposal was made to synonymize all subspecies of cerana, the community of bee researchers and taxonomists has actually adopted this new concept of the species in which no subspecies are recognized. If that is the primary source of contention and confusion here, then the standard application of Wikipedia policy is to adopt the consensus view for the article, but cite the minority view; the most relevant policy is probably WP:UNDUE, which is worth reading if it is not familiar. The way to treat the article is therefore dependent on whether it is possible to determine what the majority view is: (1) if the majority view, as of 2020, is that there are no subspecies of Apis cerana, then all the articles referring to cerana subspecies should be merged or turned into redirects, and the section on taxonomy should be greatly reduced so all it says, essentially, is that while subspecies used to be recognized (citing Engel 1999), they are not considered valid any more (citing Radloff et al. 2010). (2) if the majority view, as of 2020, is that the subspecies are valid (i.e., if the Radloff et al. paper has not gained acceptance in the scientific community), then the portion of the article referring to the Radloff et al. analysis should cite it as representing a minority view, and the existing article(s) left otherwise largely intact. Dyanega (talk) 16:36, 3 September 2020 (UTC)