We need to connect the willing mentors with iNatters willing to help with the bulk and easy annotations. Such a waste of a skilled taxon specialist’s time and knowledge, when they could focus on interesting and unusual obs instead.
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I was just thinking of doing my own 20k observations first ;)
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YES! I always add annotations to my observations so I can provide as much information as possible.
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I’ll make a small case for adding annotations to bird records too: though most bird observations are of full-grown feathered fellas, there are reasonable numbers of egg, nest and juvenal observations out there too. Annotating them is worth it to help others identify randomly encountered eggs and nests, and has maybe some potential to be used for phenological studies. Also perhaps to determine when a species might be actively breeding in a certain area.
It’d be wonderful if we had a consistent way of annotating or tagging immature birds, but I can see why it probably won’t happen. Would make some identification filters (I’m particularly thinking gulls here) more useful.
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Yes, I use egg annotations to ID regularly. As well as those, there’s also feathers, which I know at least a few prolific identifiers specialize in, so that helps as well. I don’t know of anyone currently working on nests (at least not in Australia) but hey, maybe someone wants to start. At any rate, bird annotations are absolutely helpful @murl10 , and we bird people thank you for them!
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Just following up on my comments about using the “Sex” annotation on iNat Butterfly Observations that I download for inclusion in the Ontario Butterfly Atlas:
I took a quick look to sort of scope out how much work would be involved in simply using any annotations that users have already added to observations. Currently, of the ~50K candidate observations I’ll be downloading for 2025, there are 60 pages worth of thumbnails of observations with the annotation set (so about 1800 observations). Of those, 29 pages have the annotation set to “male”, 26 pages have the annotation set to “female”, and 6 pages have it set to ‘Cannot be determined’. I would probably just ignore indeterminate observations, and review those with the annotation set to either male or female. The prospect of reviewing ~60 pages of thumbnails at the end of the year isn’t all that daunting, as many species can be sexed directly from the thumbnails. However, I would have to contend with the fact that only the observer can change an incorrect annotation. This means I would have to make use of an observation field to override the annotation. It appears that a “Sex” field exists, and some folks are using it. If I opt to make use of that field to ‘correct’ invalid annotations, it means my software would have to be modified to look at both the ‘Sex’ annotation and the “Sex” field. That’s a one time code change, and probably not too onerous. So far so good - all that is probably doable. Note that I’m not considering ADDING the annotation to observations that don’t already have it. That would be much more challenging, as it would involve reviewing 10’s of thousands of observations every year and adding the annotation (where it can be easily determined from the photos provided). I suppose that in certain cases where I’m already making corrections to an observation, I could add the Sex annotation while I’m at it. But is it worth it to have information about sex for only a small fraction (< 5%) of the observations? I will have to consider it.
As far as making use of the annotation retroactively (ie. for observations from previous years that are already in our Atlas), that’s a bigger task. Again, only considering making use of existing annotations (not adding any), that would entail reviewing 162 pages of male thumbnails, and 146 pages of female thumbnails, and then conducting an audit where I download all these observations and update our database with the Sex info extracted from them. Again, I will have to consider it.
Is it worth your time and effort to you - only you can answer that.
But for us - if I ask iNat to show me a male butterfly of this sp - I only get an answer if someone has annotated a few (good) ones. So - yes, thank you.
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I’ve been going through and ID’ing + annotating all the Varanus species. I’ve only got nine species left, but those account for about 90% of all the observations for the taxon. It’s daunting stuff, especially for identifiers who work on more popular groups, I’m sure.
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I meant:
“is it worth my time to verify that the annotations are correct, and deal with workarounds for the fact that I can’t correct them when they are not (I can only downvote)” when less than 5% of the observations have these annotations.
It’s an extra step in what is already an onerous process, with questionable benefit.
Whether or not other folks want to add the annotations and use them is a completely separate question and I would never presume to pass judgement on whether it is worth it for them.
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Are you thinking of something beyond annotating Juvenile under the Life Stage? Annotating birds has become one of my main activities here, but as I am very much not an expert I welcome all new knowledge about how to improve! I began with just marking feather observations for the Found Feathers project and quickly realized that, while I was at it, I could also mark nests, dead birds, scat, etc. I generally can’t annotate sex unless it’s something obvious I already know like the Northern Cardinal. I also generally don’t stop for what I think of as a “default bird observation”–living, adult bird with no other features to be annotated.
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That’s such an important point about allowing it to be fun. Agree
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Yes, for me plant phenology annotations are very important. I use them in a project comparing the growth sequence of wild species with the same species grown in a nearby Native Plant Nursery.
Accurate annotation also improves the phenology graph in the iNat CHARTS associated with the species, super helpful for looking at the phenology sequence of plants and watching for flowering and fruiting times as well as vegetative growth.
Thank you to all who make the annotations.
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It improves the charts on the species page. You can see what time of year an insect is in a particular life stage, or what time of year a plant is flowering……
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Right??? I think it’s a question of app UI … And keyboard controls shortcuts on web are not practical at all. If it’s a popular science app IMO it should be practical and visible on the app for everyone, since many people doesn’t even know how to use the computer. At least it’s a reality of many children, elderly, or even social vulnerable people.
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iNat Classic on iPhone doesn’t have annotations. I have to use a computer to add them.
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My assumption was that yes, people do use them – but I was introduced to them early when I joined the platform to upload periodical cicada photos. A very nice iNatter explained the importance of not just the annotations but also some of the other fields I didn’t know about (e.g. observation fields) for future researchers.
I do think they have value, especially when it comes to various life stages, species with different morphs, or species with one particular sex that has different morphs (I am probably using that word wrong, but I mean when the coloring is different, like with Virginia tiger moths, or female eastern tiger swallowtails). Understanding plant life cycles is important too. Overall, I think they can have tremendous value, whether for education/learning, or for research.
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Sorry, @murl10 that I’ve been unable to respond in a timely fashion.
Yes: for birds specifically the ability to discriminate better between age-related plumages. Birds gor from a downy (juvenal, if memory serves) plumage in the nest or when running around as precocious chicks to the first proper feathers (juvenile) when they fledge. It then gets complicated. Depending on species they might moult some or all of their plumage following fledging so that they are indistinguishable from their parents, or they might take several years to get there. It’s useful for some species (I’m thinking gulls in particular here) to be able to age them properly before you can identify them. And given that down, juvenile plumage and immature plumages can often look wildly different, it’d be nice to be able to discriminate.
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I misread that as “phrenology graphs” and thought “what?!?” for a minute.
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I use them, as many flies are sexually dimorphic, so selecting for adult, and male or female, is handy for comparisons. I also add life stage and sex to almost all the flies I ID, as it’s easy to do. I generally identify the whole page, and then change it to Annotations and add those. Also ‘Dead’, if it is, and if killed by something. I usually add mating pairs to the Mating Behaviour and add ‘Copulating - Yes’, as well.
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It is one great way to learn. I especially want reviewers to add reason(s) they disagree with an ID. This is my one request from all folks. If you disagree with an ID, that fine, but please, PLEASE tell me why.
Thanks Mike
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