Is it better to have phenotypic or genotypic references when identifying an unknown species?

The majority of contemporary scientific publications view the molecular component—which includes DNA extraction and amplification—as an excellent tool for identifying, categorizing, and naming unidentified species because genomic sequences contain arranged, specific, long A-T-G-C sequences, each of which corresponds to a distinct organism phenotype and generates roughly a thousand possible characters.

Unfortunately, even though DNA sequences can be very specific for a given species, some of these species may have overlapping sets of sequences with other nearby or distant species, which can make the decision of which species to identify as the unknown specimen difficult or confusing. For example, if you generate a set of sequences in BLAST to identify match results, which then lead to similar species encoded in GenBank, and five of the match species are 99% similar to the unknown, but they all belong to different families, then the identification becomes crucial, and this is the situation where the relevance of the species' morpho-anatomical traits becomes crucial.

Given that every level of organization (such as Family, Order, or Genus) has distinct characteristics that are difficult to ascertain through genotypic level, morpho-anatomical characteristics allow you to infer the ideal match by looking at the phenotypic or physical structures of the organism.

In addition, the most effective way to ensure or satisfy species identity is to use both morphoanatomical and molecular features.

It is generally better to have genotypic references when identifying an unknown species because genotypic references provide more accurate and reliable information about the genetic makeup of the organism, which can help in more precise identification compared to phenotypic references, which rely on observable physical characteristics.