Hi, baby observer here. There is a fair sized population of tree frogs that I observe often but the issue I’m having is they could be Cope’s gray tree frogs or gray tree frogs as there is no known way to visually tell them apart. The location I am observing them is within the territories for both species. I’m confused on what I’m supposed to label them as. I usually pick gray tree frog complex but I’m not entirely sure what complex means in this context and my ID is often corrected. Is there a way to label that they could be either?
Complex is the best bet, since that is an option here. For iNat, that’s a group of related and similar species that we usually can’t tell apart just from photos.
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Yes the complex is the correct way to label that they could be either; that’s specifically why the complex exists. On the taxonomy tab you can see which species are included in a broader taxon - identifying at that taxon essentially means “it could be any of the lower taxa but I can’t tell which”. In this case the complex only includes Grey and Cope’s.
I’m curious what the ID is being corrected to usually, if not the complex?
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Got it! Thank you!
I would also note that these species can be differentiated by call by those who are experienced in doing so, it’s a bit of an acquired skill since the calls also vary with temp.
Here’s a good blog post on this:
https://frogcalls.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-gray-treefrogs-hyla-versicolor-vs.html
They can also be distinguish by DNA/karyotype of course, but that’s not accessible to most observers!
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Also feel free to ask questions of identifiers if/when they correct IDs by commenting on the observation. Most are happy to share information when asked, and sometimes they are specialists in a certain species or group.
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