Overview of projects requested, for annotation volunteers:
RG United States Lepidoptera - life stage annotations
RG Northern Cardinal w/o sex annotation - sex and life stage annotations
Lycosidae - adult females with egg sacs/spiderlings
Platypezidae - sex annotation (male eyes meet in the middle, females don’t)
here. - Odonata nymphs
Syrphinae - sex annotations for hoverflies
Nymphs? What about exuviae? What do exuviae get annotated as, anyway? Would you prefer Anisoptera or Zygoptera or both?
Exuvia is moult / molt ?
Oh, that makes sense! But then how do you annotate for life stage? Exuviae are signs of both a nymph and a teneral being present at that site.
If the teneral isn’t there, I just annotate the molt. If the teneral is there, I add the life stage, and add evidence for molt and organism.
When we got the new batch of annotations tiwane said Lifestage Egg and Evidence of Presence Egg. So my takeaway is, if it applies, use it.
I’m confused. An exuvia is not an egg.
He was asked which one to use - and he said both - Life stage and Evidence of Presence if they fit. Molt and Teneral (if in photo) for you.
Both Anisoptera and Zygoptera, please.
I annotate exuviae as molt. I do not annotate the molt as teneral unless the actual, recently-emerged odonate is in the photo. I believe to do so can fiddle with phenology records as someone may record a molt in, say, November after a freeze but the actual organism is long past the teneral stage.
And thank you and everyone who is annotating. This makes me so happy!
Good - that’s exactly what I’ve been doing. And since I have found exuviae tucked up under bridges in mid-winter here in New England, I think you’re wise not to annotate them to life stage.
In case it’s helpful I wanted to mention that If you put nymph in the Description/Tag search box the concentration of nymphs appears to be greater than without that filter.
Unfortunately we cannot do both 
So probably there are different approaches.
If the female is still carrying the egg sac I am annotating as lifestage egg, which will pop up in the seasonallity chart and give a clear idea of when those spiders reproduce.
If the spidrrlings have already emerged I will annotate the adult female, as annotating as juvenile will make the picture on the chart less clear I feel.
In the first case I will also annotate “evidence of observation” as organism and egg.
Ok. I have been annotating them all as Adult Female, then adding observation field: egg sac or carrying spiderlings.
What about Life Stage: Adult Female, then Evidence: Organism and Egg?
I think that is fine as well, the maturity graph is super helpful. Observation fields are for sure a great option as well, I might need to get into those.
Thanks for tackling those!
Anja, I don’t have an opinion on this, but you reminded me of this:
The intention is to leave observation fields so the observer / researcher can record exactly what they want to.
Tried out the Northern Cardinal annotations project, and finished two counties. About 70% adult male, about 25% adult female, the rest a mix of male/female in same photo, photo too dark to determine, or can’t see beak. Two juveniles were close to adult plumage, beak hadn’t changed yet. Four others were newly fledged or too young to determine.
This would be an easy project with just a few points to learn. There are more than 154,000 to annotate, so someone could even select the adult male cardinal observations and not run out very soon.
2.0 Overview of projects requested, for annotation volunteers:
RG United States Lepidoptera - life stage annotations
RG Northern Cardinal w/o sex annotation - sex and life stage annotations (juveniles have dark beaks, adult males are mostly red.)
Lycosidae - adult females with egg sacs/spiderlings - annotate egg sacs as Life Stage Eggs. Useful observation fields: Spider Life: Spiderlings, Multiple Life Stages: Juvenile, Spider Brood Carrying
Platypezidae- sex annotation (male eyes meet in the middle, females don’t)
Odonata - especially seeking nymphs
Syrphinae - sex annotations for hoverflies
An easy one – determine the colour of the beautiful ornate checkered beetle:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?quality_grade=research&without_field=Ornate+Beetle+color&taxon_id=61157 They come in either yellow or red, typically, with yellow predominating. A report claimed that there are more red in hotter drier places, and so it may be possible to test that or just see if there are pockets of red. It’s pretty quick to look at the photo & see if it is yellow or not. There is also an “other” category for the few that don’t fit (at least one seemed to have both colours).
(Go to Annotations, Observation fields, Ornate Beetle colour, Add if yellow or hit the pull-down for red or other, then Add). I usually shrink the other areas in Annotations.
Any help is much appreciated!
Perfect rainy day activity!
