It’s too bad we don’t have a way to annotate on a separate layer without that layer being flattened & becoming part of the image itself. Not just in iNat; in image editors too.
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this is a big one. if people have to search around for id info and then it’s written using terms they don’t understand, most of them will probably be frustrated and move on. highly technical information is certainly very useful for scientific reasons but the average person needs an approachable way to enter the world of identifying nature. your site is very cool by the way!
one way it could perhaps be presented on inat is next to the taxon photo when you look at suggestions. at least on the computer site you’ll see the species name, two photos (which you can click to see more), and a map of occurrences. maybe it could be the taxon photo (still clickable to see more photos), a summary of distinguishing traits, and then the map. i’m terrible at explaining things so maybe a picture would help?
(pretend that’s a well rendered example + it’s the usual inat colors because i forgot i have an extension turned on + it’s an observation where the written information would actually be helpful lol. i’m tired and spent about two minutes on it, cut me a little slack)
i do wonder, though, how inat would set up the section where people can enter the distinguishing traits. i guess on the species page. you could make it so only curators could add the information to prevent potential spam or something but i reckon that’d just add unnecessary work for the curators and that’d neglect species that the curators don’t know much about themselves. i’m also not sure how it would work for mobile because i don’t do much on mobile.
overall it’d be quite the undertaking to plan and set up but it would be a helpful addition to inaturalist, especially when it comes to encouraging newcomers to get out there and practice their identification skills!
edit: not relevant to the creation of the feature, rather the application of it, but it’s maybe worth noting that if those were the real notes for turkey and black vultures they’d be both better written and include more details to distinguish the species from other new world vultures down south, corvids, birds of prey in flight, etc. just wanted to make it obvious that i wouldn’t actually suggest those as the taxon notes lol
That is open to anyone. When I come across a comment that explains why … I go back to the taxon pictures and make sure that distinguishing feature is illustrated, and is among the first few photos.
Searsia crenata - crenata is that scalloped edge on the leaves
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/593871-Searsia-crenata
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