I’d like to be a more helpful identifier and focus on things that don’t already have a lot of identifiers like birds.
Whenever I try to find an unpopular group (family, genus, etc) to learn to identify, though, most of the species look extremely similar or are outright impossible to tell apart visually.
Is it just impossible to find anything that’s lacking IDs and is possible to identify visually? I’d love some recommendations for taxa to learn that are under identified! Thanks!
Edit: Thanks so much for the tips and advice, everyone! I’m currently starting to work on old Sciuromorpha and Lithobates Needs ID observations, and will eventually get around to working on many of the options given in this thread as well!
Yes there are, but it depends immensely on the area. For any given “default” area, there will be a group of usual identifiers and there’s a good chance there’s something easy to identify that is just not too familiar to that particular group.
For example, one day I realised that in my area no one was identifying black rats vs brown rats and there was a pile of observations sitting at Rattus. All it took was a bit of researching to learn the differences and I was able to clean a pile of now-very-easy observations.
It’s certainly harder if you live in an area with a lot of identifiers like most of USA, but you can check which organisms in your area have a lot of observations sitting at genus (maybe rabbits? some kind of lizard of snake? bathroom flies? Airplants?) and search the species in your area and the identification tips to see if you stumble upon something that is very easy once you familiarise yourself.
It’s a bit off topic here, but how do you reliably ID Black vs. Brown rat from the typical photo on iNat? I was looking into Rattus observations in central Europe to see if there are actually Black Rats and have seen exactly zero convincing Black Rats and a lot of observations that I would personally keep as Rattus.
One thing I’ve found helpful is to go through something I see in my area. Then I go though the top Identifiers, and see if they have posted any ID help notes. Then I message them to get a bit of background. Then I just take what they’ve said and apply it to my area.
For example I stumbled upon a note about tamarix in the southwest. After a bit I messaged the person who put it up and got a tad more information. They cannot reliably be ID’d to species without microscopic views of the “nectar pod”<- it has a different name. And even then because the ease of hybridization is often impossible without genetic testing. Thus all the obs need to be at “Complex Tamarix chinensis” and marked “as good as it can get”. I also share the information in a comment.
But a lot of the obs I’ve found to be helpful with are like that or something where there is a look alike but on a different continent. You can usually reliably ID past that.
As for easy IDs I’d just go poking around something in your area, spend a weekend looking up the taxonomy and see if there is an easy point, for you, to ID apart. Even all the way to the kingdom level. Monocot vs. dicot. fungi vs slimemold. etc.
There are a whole lot of invertebrates and plants that could use more IDers. Some of this is because they are understudied and the taxonomy isn’t well understood, but it’s also because they aren’t as charismatic and don’t have good guides available even if they are well understood scientifically. So you have to do a little more searching for resources. If mollusks sound interesting, I have a lot of links on my iNat profile, and could provide many more.
Thank you! I have wanted to get into plant ID for a while, but it’s hard to know where to start with so many species. It also seems like people sometimes forget to include photos of identifying features with plants, which isn’t their fault, but it makes identification a lot harder. I’m sure there’s some taxa that are easily identifiable though; I’ll have to look into them more.
Mollusks actually do sound really interesting!! They’ve been a bit intimidating to me since I don’t know much about them, but I definitely want to learn more. I’ll look through the resources on your profile and see if I can learn to identify some. Thanks!!
Thank you for this! I have actually done many of these, but I never thought about adding common names or a few other things on that list! I’m pretty obsessed with taxonomy and will definitely look into how I can add common names. I’ve come across many species on here that lack them.
I do still hope to find a few taxa to learn about and develop my ID skills for, but the link you provided will definitely keep me busy in the meantime :)
Now, I bet most of the deer observations are of scat or tracks or bones, but while I’m no expert on deer, I think those things can sometimes be easy enough to ID for white-tails.
The inverse (?) of the original question is also interesting. Where can coarser IDs be made to correct overly specific identifications? There are many cases where a particular genus, subfamily, or even family cannot be identified further reliably (in most cases), but iNaturalist is inundated with overly specific IDs. The fly family Sciaridae is a good example of this where without microscopic examination or barcoding most IDs will be suspect beyond family.
I know it isn’t as interesting as pushing identifications closer to species, but it does help.
The more generic it looks, the more difficult it is ID tends to be the rule. Like @bradbarnd said, certain fly families require microscopic examination or close-ups of particular parts of the anatomy (wing venation, bristles, etc), though there are probably some easily visually identifiable flies
Plants. Plants need more identifiers. !!! Some plants are easy to ID. Some are essentially impossible. (Call all Taraxacum “Taraxacum” and mark “No, it’s as good as it can be.”)
A cursory search through google images will explain it better than I can, but in general:
First of all, check if there are any other rodents that look similar to brown/black rats in your area. I got fooled by a marsh rat that I didn’t know existed where I live before
Check the length and thickness of the tail. Black have very thin and longer than the rest of the body, brown have a thicker base and it is shorter or the same length as the body. The tail is often the easiest way to tell them apart.
Brown have a heavy, “round” build. Black are slender, longer and cylindrical.
The brown rat has a somewhat rectangular face, with the incisors pointing directly down from the nose. Black rats have a much more pointy face, with the incisors pointing slightly backwards.
Brown has small ears covered in thin fuzz, black has larger and balder ears
Any colour other than black and agouti means it’s an escaped/released domestic brown rat. There is at least one breeder dedicated to domesticating black rats, but I don’t think they have gotten fancy coats yet.
In my experience, common plants need more identifiers! For example, red maple (Acer rubrum) is one of the most common species in eastern North America, and is not particularly difficult to identify. The issue is that there are just so many observations that it overwhelms the identifiers.
