Observation data is often used by various projects for research purposes, and so these little “hair splitting” details can be important. Chilling something in the fridge the photograph it may not affect the quality of an observation much, as long as the insect in question is reported at the original location where it was captured (not where the fridge is). Some species are very localized. Reporting them even a few hundred meters from their actual habitat can result in an anomaly.
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I’ll preface this by saying that I know nothing at all about butterflies in Mexico.
But here in Ontario, we have some butterflies that occur in multiple broods per year, but in distinct seasonal forms. (eg. one form emerges in mid-summer and another emerges later in the summer). I’m not sure if it’s temperature or photo-period that determines the form (or a combination of both), but I’ve seen cases where someone tried to raise the larvae under conditions as close as possible to natural, yet consistently got the “wrong” form emerging. Now, we see instances of the “wrong” form occurring in nature as well, but they are rare. So something about raising them in captivity tampered with the mechanism that determines which form should emerge. Reporting a bunch of captively raised butterfles that emerged in the “wrong” phase would give a misleading impression of the frequency with which that “error” occurs.
Perhaps there are cases of Mexican species that occur in seasonal forms (rainy vs dry) season - I don’t know. But that’s why it’s probably best to establish a convention for how to treat observations like this and stick to it, rather than get into “rules lawyering” on a case by case basis.
As someone who uses iNat observations for research purposes, I’d like to see something that indicates a butterfly was being raised in captivity - at minimum, a note in the comments. I check all observations against expected flight seasons and if the timing of something looks off, I’d like to be able to go back to the original observation to see if there’s a notation somewhere to explain it.
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The data from your activities will offer excellent evidence that the species in question occurs naturally at the time and place that you collected it. It may indeed be impossible to get the larval stages to research grade without the rearing phase. That would mean the species would never be proven for the collecting locality.
Definitely use the collecting location for the entire series. Assuming you are not forcing the caterpillars to develop at an unusual season, the actual dates should be good for phenology.
Whatever you do, don’t label these as “captive”. That really mostly means that they are not relevant to understanding species ranges and biogeography. Your records are good for feeding on into GBIF, etc.
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Yes, those cases occur, but they are very rare and I haven’t raised any. Some of those can be Pyrisitia or Abaeis species, but that rarely happens.
Ok yes that’s pretty obvious, I wouldn’t upload a captive bred caterpillar without indicating at least its captivity status with a comment.
Just because many insects can be active at any time of year doesn’t mean the point about seasonality doesn’t apply, it could still disrupt potential data about the seasonal trends of a species if the emergence of captive reared individuals is at all affected by captivity.
That aside, the point I was making about the moth hotspot wasn’t about the quantity of individuals. It’s just the fact that when you capture early stages, rear them, and then observe the adult upon release you’re observing something that probably had a very slim chance of survival and likely would not exist as a mature individual if you hadn’t reared it, which really doesn’t seem like an accurate observation of a wild organism. That’s why I would make a single observation for the larvae when they were first collected and clarify that photos of later stages were taken after rearing.
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How those forms are determinated? Here difference between broods only depends on amount of heat pupa gets.
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After being released they fit escapee category and are wild for iNat, though there’re sure downsides of having such observations as wild.
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Most times these forms are pretty conspicuous and easy to tell apart.
No, I mean which mechanisms are in play that some bred caterpillars can affect them?
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Oh got it.
No idea how they get determined.
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Great question, and some great answers! I occasionally rear caterpillars so I’ve had to think about these issues. I would like to add my vote for the following options that have already been mentioned…
I think you have two options:
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Make a single “wild” post of the collected organism (using the location/time/date where it was collected) and then add follow-up photos (and information) to the same post. The actual post consists only of the original collected organism. Additional added photos/information are not part of the original post, they are clarifying information and are clearly identified as such. So you are not misrepresenting anything by doing this. This is my preferred approach (see below).
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Make the original post and mark it as “wild.” Then make subsequent separate posts and mark them as “captive” and provide links in both posts to each other. I think it is more work to do it this way, and it also requires more work on the part of other users to see the “whole story.” As an iNat user, I would prefer to see all the follow-up information contained in the original post. This way there is less danger of me seeing a photo of an adult butterfly and thinking it’s wild if you have included everything in the original post – I’ll see the captive life history laid out in photos right before my eyes. If you do a separate “captive” post for the adult butterfly, I might see that and not notice the fine print, and think the phenology and appearance are natural.
And a note: once you have affected the phenology or morphology of an organism by bringing it into captivity and providing care, it is no longer wild. Even if you release it into the wild, it is not wild. And besides, it is inadvisable to release captive organisms into the wild because you may spread diseases obtained in captivity, you may alter the phenology of the population, you may mislead others who find your released individual, etc. As far as I’m concerned, when you decide to rear an organism, you are committing to killing it. If you don’t want to ultimately kill it, consider rearing it in situ in the field by placing a mesh bag over it. On the other hand, if you temporarily hold an organism in captivity for photography and then release it and it’s unlikely that you have significantly altered its phenology or morphology, then it’s still wild. And if you regularly clean and disinfect your holding cage, there is probably much less danger of spreading diseases from this type of short-term activity.
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I agree with previous commenters that it’s not wild at the moment of release, but any subsequent observations would count as wild. Per iNat’s definition, a feral dog or cat is wild, and a released butterfly clearly fits into that category.
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If I understand your process, I would say these are not captive bred, but rather captive raised. Breeding implies you are in control of the reproductive process, doesn’t it?
Just generally, I’m a little conflicted about the practice of raising wild critters. It is a great learning experience, I’m sure. Still, From my perspective, it does not seem ideal to remove lots of eggs from the wild on a regular basis, without a pretty important motive. Perhaps they could get infected with a pathogen in-house and take it to the wild population. Then, how would removing eggs effect the local ecosystem? Larva are food for many other animals, right? I know of instances of children collecting dozens tadpoles for the fun of seeing them develop, creating a concern that they removed most of a generation (I recall you said you return them to the collection place). But, might raising them “off site” affect the instinct to migrate or return to birth ponds to reproduce?
Just some thoughts…
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I think these types of observations are EXTREMELY valuable and anything that causes them to become casual should be avoided. I think the best solution is for iNaturalist to add a new category for them so they are explicitly handled for what they are. Has anyone proposed this?
I’ve been thinking about doing the same thing for germination of seeds. Seedlings are often quite distinctive and there’s pretty much nothing out there for identification of them. But they can be documented by collection of seeds from the wild followed by captive germination.
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I was thinking the same thing myself. I believe the information provided outweighs any detriments.
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Future Feature Request?
Having not necessarily read the rules, I have added photos of next stages or growth of my existing observations. I didn’t know the sticky rules, and I prefer to see a season’s worth all together. It only makes sense, in my opinion. And it would cut down on the need of separate confirmation ids.
I also know nothing about tech, or how we get from here to there. My best guess is the sooner the ball starts rolling the quicker to there.
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The problem is all photos together imply all those stages were found in one day, which is untrue, and as such observations are hard to distinguish from just many specimens/one location observations, this will affect data on species (as we see other resources often take iNat info as automatically correct, and false info can spread really fast). Would be really nice to just have connected observations as part of iNat system.
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- Keep the original capture observation as not captive
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- Mark the captive observations as captive.
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- Either use the related observation field to link them or put the urls of the captive/casual obs in the comments of the original obs
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- Any serious researcher who understands iNat isn’t going to have a problem with them being captive/casual and to them reaching RG is irrelevant
I’m going to stop banging my head on my desk and stop following this topic now.
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I don’t think anyone has. You should submit a feature request.
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