Reading this:
And this:
Reminds me of this:
In 2025, plants were the most observed taxonomic group on iNaturalist, with 40% of observations being plants.
Yeah, I was going to suggest adopting a common weedy plant that has few lookalikes. There is often a backlog of observations if such species that are Needs ID not because they are difficult, but because they are ubiquitous, easily accessible to city residents, and often not particularly exciting to identifiers.
In the UK/northwestern Europe there are a few species-poor, distinctive genera like Plantago, Reseda, and Galinsoga that would be good choices for a novice identifier. It looks like the original poster is in the southern US, so I can’t make specific suggestions for that region, assuming she wants to focus on species she is familiar with locally.
if you are willing to expand your search outside of Western countries, you’ll find many taxa in dire need of help, even easy taxa. I can give you a leg up on finding resources for the Middle East, if you want.
And even if they’re not easy to ID, you can at least annotate while you’re there, for “evidence of presence” as scat, track, bone etc., which will be helpful for identifiers who are filter for such things, either to find them or to exclude them.
Right now, I can usually only ID local plants to family or genus level, or I can only ID them at certain times of year, like when they’re flowering or fruiting. I’ve only really been interested in plants for a few months and have mostly been photographing them rather than learning to identify them. I do want to start learning more about local species though! I know some good resources for learning southeastern plants (where I’m located), but haven’t found the time to really sit down and study them yet.
I really like the American bullfrog suggestion!! I’ve been getting interested in frogs lately, and I’m good at differentiating bullfrogs from green frogs. I didn’t realize how many bullfrog observations were at Needs ID, I’ll definitely start working on those!
I have added some IDs to white-tailed deer observations, but you were right about a lot of them being bones and scat, which I’m not great with. Bone identification in general does seem like it would be worth learning though. I see a lot of Needs ID mammal observations that are photos of bones. I’ll add those to my list of things to learn to identify :)
Your comment was very helpful, thank you! You gave me two new things to start identifying.
That’s a good point. I do occasionally come across observations where the IDs seem overly specific, especially in the case of subgenera. I’d love if anyone could provide more examples like Sciaridae, where taxa are unable to be identified past a certain level!
Yeah, that’s a problem that seems to exist with certain plant species as well. A lot of people just don’t know what features need to be photographed to make their observation identifiable. If every observation was very high-quality and included every identifying feature, things would be a lot easier. Obviously though, not everyone is an expert with a professional camera, so some taxa are often more difficult than others.
Thank you! Plants are a good suggestion, they definitely seem to be lacking in identifiers.
Do you know any plants that are relatively easy to identify? I’ve been meaning to get into plant ID, but I’m not really sure where to start, since there’s so many species! I’m in the southeastern US, if that matters, but I’d be willing to learn easy-ish plants from pretty much anywhere.
Also, I’ve come across your projects on iNat! I haven’t spent a whole lot of time looking through them yet, but from what I’ve seen, they seem very helpful for plant identification. Thank you for making them!!
This is a really good suggestion! Thank you! I have noticed that many rodents are lacking in identifiers, but I always kind of assumed that was because they were just too similar-looking and nearly impossible to ID. Thank you for proving me wrong :) I’ll definitely add rodents to my list of things to learn to identify!!
Thank you!! That’s a good point about the number of observations overwhelming identifiers. Are there any more somewhat easily-identifiable plant species I should learn? I’ve been wanting to learn plant identification, but the number of species is really overwhelming and I’m not sure where to start. Having a handful of species to start with would be really helpful :)
This is a good suggestion, thanks! I’m sure there are some species like that here in the southeastern US that I could learn about, but I’m also fine with learning about plants from pretty much anywhere! Species-poor and distinctive genera seem like a great place to start. I’ll have to look around on iNat and see if there’s any local genera that meet those qualifications.
I am 100% willing to expand beyond western countries! I guess I should’ve included that in my original post, because I’ve definitely noticed a lack of identifiers outside of western countries like the US and I would love to learn to identify taxa in those places.
What resources would you recommend for the Middle East? I find it a bit more enjoyable to identify animals than plants, but I’m open to anything. I’m not sure whether I want to expand to insects yet, though.
This is a good idea! I definitely enjoy adding annotations to observations, especially when I come across an observation of a dead animal or evidence other than “organism”.
I’ve become a top identifier of roses because I know how to identify two common species (and even then, not all the time).
The way this happened is that I was frustrated at the lack of species IDs on my rose observations, so I tried to see if I could figure it out myself. I learned just enough rose terminology to be able to figure out a couple of very simple characteristics to look for, and then I just went through hundreds and hundreds of observations.
I skipped quite a lot of observations, but just doing the easy ones got me on the leaderboard, which was a bit of a shock. 
I made a few mistakes in the process, but as long as you keep an eye on your notifications, a few mistakes are not a problem (as long as you are trying to learn from them).
So, this is a route I recommend: Start with what you know in your area, but maybe those observations aren’t getting a second, confirming species ID. That might indicate a gap that you can help fill for other people. Identify what you can, and skip what you can’t, and you will keep finding more and more things to do, until you figure out where you fit in.
Thank you for this advice! That’s kind of what I’ve been doing (the last part) and it seems to be working so far. I guess I’m getting a little too eager and I don’t really need to be an expert in anything specific yet. Plants in general need more IDs for sure :)
I’m glad I was helpful. For what it’s worth, I do a lot of plant identifying and I often can only identify them when they are in flower or fruit. For example, I can identify Chicory in eastern North America when it’s flowering, but I’m a little hesitant to ID it when it’s just leaves.
If you’re in Georgia, I think you’d really enjoy learing to identify the different Magnolia species. Many people take photos of the spectacular flowers, but the species are best told by leaves and evergreen-ness and where they are growing (mountains, swamps, coastal plain). Keys at https://fsus.ncbg.unc.edu and folks in your Native Plant Society can help get you up to speed. And you will start to see them every time you go out.
Sorry if this is a stupid question but how do you define an area?
We’re always looking for more identifiers to aid in IDing eastern North American cicadas. (Neotibicen, Megatibicen, etc.). They’re not as difficult as they first appear. Also there is a big backlog of Pterophylla camellifolia which is unusual because there is no katydid that sounds or looks like it in the U.S. and Canada.
Hey no problem, I was referring to the “Default Search Place” set to the users (You can see it on your settings and also shows on Identify, explore, etc).
Honestly I can’t quite remember if the default location is set automatically, but I certainly don’t remember setting the oddly specific area I have as default so I’d guess that’s the case. In my case, it’s the metropolitan area surrounding Buenos Aires city, which seems to be the case for most (all?) people inside the limits of that area.
Since the “Default Search Place” is automatically set when you click on Identify, you kind of have the same group of identifiers repeating for a given place, and what gets or doesn’t get identified depends largely on the pool of knowledge of that group.