Not sure how this happened or how to prevent it in the future, but the “representative” selection of photos for the common sunflower (Helianthus annuus) contains a lot of cultivars that are not representative of wild specimens. As a result, I believe, a lot of common sunflowers are being misidentified as some other native that looks more similar to actual common sunflowers. https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/57983-Helianthus-annuus
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i think anyone can just go in and change the photos to whatever they like. or if you’re not comfortable with doing that, you could just flag the taxon and ask a curator to change them. i think it’s possible to close down specific taxa so that their photos cannot be changed, but that seems to be more of an exception than a rule.
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Oh, things I learned today, thank you. Didn’t know that one can change these photos. I thougth they are somewhat like the most popular or alike. Cool.
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But taxon photos should contain cultivar photos if there’re any, people mostly aren’t iding based on those photos, they likely just use cv that is not connected to them.
You can edit the taxon photos. When I click thru for leaf detail, or gone to seed … if it is not in the taxon photos, I add, delete, and sort so the first few each show something useful and different.
Now the first picture is a garden plant in Thailand - which shouldn’t be ‘Wild and Research Grade’. Another tucked in a concrete corner. And a planted field. Taxon pictures shouldn’t be cultivated plants. But I will leave that to you.
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I would somewhat disagree with that. A detailed picture from a botanical garden showing all the features needed for identification might make for a great taxon photo. For some rare species with very few or no observations from the wild (e.g. tropical orchids), pictures of plants in a greenhouse setting halfway around the world may be the only suitable images even available as taxon photos on iNat. Now cultivars (selected by humans for particular traits and no longer resembling the wild species) probably should indeed not be used as taxon pictures. I understand some of these are ‘escaped’ and hence ‘wild’ by iNat standards, but they are confusing/misleading when trying to ID the wild species.
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Yes for your cases. But often there is a nice selection of good detailed clear photos among the wild ones. While the first taxon picture is - nice picture of the butterfly / dog / observers but, or the label, or an obvious garden setting where the actual plant is secondary.
When I flag up a missing species I don’t add taxon pictures, since I don’t know what it needs.
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