That Nothylaeus (bubbling bee) only needs 2 more obs to hit the 100 target for CV next round.
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Please keep going - I do the same thing with my forest backyard and have photographed some unnamed species from time to time, so it is really worthwhile. And your photos will provide a record of changes over time which is probably valuable in itself. I’m so sorry you and your husband and children had to spend so much time apart…the world today is so different now.
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Others have written plenty about the real value that your observations can have even if they don’t seem very significant to you. I would also emphasize that iNat’s mission is help people learn more about nature in whatever way works for them. The citizen science data is a fantastic byproduct, but not the sole purpose.
Of course, a rewarding experience on iNat can depend in part on several types of interaction, and these can sometimes be harder to come by when you live in a place that fewer other users are knowledgable about and when the things you observe have a smaller number of knowledgable identifiers.
If you’re especially curious about, say, treehoppers, or ferns, or frogs or flycatchers, there will generally be someone on iNat that knows them well and is happy to help you build your local knowledge. And as you start to build up that knowledge it can be rewarding to use it to help ID other people’s observations in your region.
If your interest stays general, that’s great too. You may find that you have more fragmentary interactions but with a wider range of other users.
Recording backyard nature in the Yucatan definitely has scientific value. It’s not clear to me whether you’re able to get out much into the country around Merida, but if you can then any observations you make of the native flora and fauna can really flesh out researchers’ understanding of what lives where. Here are a few local examples from the plant families that I focus on (as an amateur):
- Echeandia luteola grows in Yucatan, Campeche and Quintana Roo. It has a rosette of narrow, spiky leaves 35–65 cm long and a thin flowering stem about 0.6–1.8 m tall. The cream colored or pale yellow flowers are about 2 cm across and hang downwards with the tepals curved backwards. The anthers are fused into a cone and the stigma pokes out through the middle of it. There are only 4 observations of this species on iNat, all about 35–50 km south of Merida (although there are several dozen other records in GBIF). It would be great to better understand where this plant occurs.
- Echeandia campechiana is almost indistinguishable from E. luteola except that the flowers are yellow or yellow–orange with free anthers (not fused). It was originally described from sites slightly east of Campeche, but has also been collected once in Yucatan state, in 1984, 4 km west of Sayil archeological site. There are no observations of this plant on iNat and it would be great to know anything at all about where this grows.
- Cipura campanulata, Eleutherine latifolia and Alophia silvestris are three fairly common, but still pretty, species in the Tigridieae tribe within the Iris family. Even though they’re not very rare, it’s still helpful to have more observations on iNat. Taxonomy is still quite fluid for many species (all these have similar sister species) and having photos available can really help researchers as they work to accurately define species boundaries. Accurate locations can also be really helpful with environmental protection.
Of course, you may see none of these plants, or not be at all interested in them, but the observations you make can help researchers in similar ways. Happy observing!
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Keep going - it is valuable.
By definition, I have no degree and never enrolled at a university but this week, sandwiched between talks by two PhD candidates, I gave a talk to university students on the importance of such apps as iNaturalist (and in Australia, Wild Orchid Watch) to science. I saw heads nodding when I spoke about the difficulty that researchers have gathering data over a long period of time and from different locations.
I have also learnt to not overlook what may seem insignificant - I photograph everything, particularly the small things.
So keep going
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I sometimes get to places here and there and I will keep my eyes open. Now please forgive my non-scientific brain because I am sure I am about to say many very stupid things.
First, I am sure you are already familiar with Centro de Investigación Científica de Yucatán which is called CICY here. They did a study of plants of the peninsula which is often helpful in understanding how plants behave here.
The Echeania luteola flowers look a bit like the ones on my potato tree which also has fused anthers but the body of it looks like one of my rain lilies. Do you know if it is a weather dependent flower, such as it only blooms after rain? Or a morning flower? (For example Ruellia and Commelina are all withered and gone by 10 AM, at least here, they are quick faders). I see by the CICY page E. luteola is currently in season and fairly widespread throughout the state (as well as present in all three states on the peninsula) so I will keep my eyes open: https://www.cicy.mx/sitios/flora%20digital/ficha_virtual.php?especie=91
CICY is also great for showing me images of E. campechiana so I know what that one looks like but per their map it does not appear to be in this state, however I am not ruling it out and will absolutely keep my eyes open. https://www.cicy.mx/sitios/flora%20digital/ficha_virtual.php?especie=89
Cipura campanulata is gorgeous! I hope I can see one. CICY has it widespread and in season! https://www.cicy.mx/sitios/flora%20digital/ficha_virtual.php?especie=331
I love how Eleutherine latifolia flowers low, oddly CICY has no page on it, which would mean they did not find it on the peninsula at the time of the last revision. Perhaps it does not survive this climate. Or maybe nobody has noted it yet – I will keep my eyes open, but I would think it will pop up in Campeche first.
Alophia silvestris looks like an apple blossom crossed with a tiger lily and is perfection. That one is here according to CICY but not as much as in four other states of MX and not at this time of year, alas. https://www.cicy.mx/sitios/flora%20digital/ficha_virtual.php?especie=330
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Hi, Lucy, I can totally relate. I love iNaturalist, but I find it hard to figure out what the goals are and what’s helpful to post and not to post. Recently I’ve also been worried about posting the same species over and over again, so I’ve not been posting until I get something new. I’m still not sure about that, which is my main frustration with the platform. It’s not transparent how to be a good iNaturalist community member.
I think one problem about getting people to follow you is iNaturalst doesn’t tell you when someone follows you. I follow a bunch of people, and it’s usually because they have a lot of sightings I’ve ID’d that I like or they’ve ID’d or commented on my photos. It also helps if they are interested in taxa that I want to learn or that I’m familiar with. But I don’t actually think it’s possible to find out who follows you unless you deliberately go to their profile and check—as far as I can tell, iNat only lists who you follow.
I’m glad you’ve found the forum. This is a really nice community here. And it’s the best resource I’ve found for someday possibly figuring out what the Good iNaturalist metrics are. :)
I also want to add that whether we like it or not—and I wish it were not true—it does seem like there are more US iNaturalists than Mexican ones. Which makes sense, since it’s a bigger population. I always choose North American (inc. ocean) for my region, and often fear to weigh in on species from Mexico because I’m not sure what the possibly confusing species are there. I’m trying to learn. But that sometimes lowers my ID rate for species outside the Eastern United States (and ups my error rate). There are also taxa that are hard to get IDs on, but someone suggested you go to your favorite taxa and ID what you can, even if it’s just to a broad taxonomic category. That’s gotten me more ID’s on my own observations in those taxa, which I super appreciate. That might get you an entree into the bug community.
On my bad days, I think, well, what if nobody cares? It is a nice record of my sightings for me to look back on. In the worst case scenario it’s a place to collect your photos. It also makes time for you to really look at the nature around you and learn about it.
Consider IDing. For me, it’s one of the most valuable things I do. I’ve learned a LOT about species from other taxa and areas. Teaching you to be a more experienced naturalist seems like a very valuable use of iNat resources. I’ve even learned a lot about photography.
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Thanks for the info about CICY. Actually, I wasn’t aware of this organization. It seems like a great resource! I hadn’t seen a live picture of Echeandia campechiana previously.
I do see the resemblance between potato tree flowers (Solanum species) and Echeandia luteola. It’s the fused anthers like you say. About half of Echeandia species have fused anthers and the other half have free anthers. Aside from the fused anthers, other characteristics are rather different. Echeandia is a fairly typical monocot, with flowers that have 6 “tepals” (3 petals and 3 sepals that all look pretty similar) and narrow, slightly fleshy leaves. Dicots like Solanum species don’t have the three-fold symmetry of monocots. Solanum has 5 petals and much more “leaf-like” leaves.
The relationship to rain lilies (Zephyranthes) is actually a lot closer. Both Echeandia and Zephyranthes are within the Asparagales order of monocots. Even so, they’re really distant relatives, with their last common ancestor being about 120 million years ago.
Echeandia is a much closer cousin to Agave species such as Agave fourcroydes
(Henequen) and Agave sisalana (Sisal). The two genera probably diverged less than 40 million years ago and maybe as recently as 20 million years.
Robert Cruden was the botanist who described most species of Echeandia, including the two on the Yucatan Peninsula. In 1999 he divided the roughly 80 species into two subgenera. Both E. luteola and E. campechiana are in Echeandia subgenus Mscavea, which he named after Marion Stilwell (M.S.) Cave, a research collaborator at U.C. Berkeley. Cruden distinguished Mscavea species from subgenus Echeandia species as follows:
In contrast, in subgenus Mscavea, the flowers open late in the morning or the afternoon, 24 of 25 species have narrowly elliptical inner tepals, and, in 22 of 23 species for which I have reasonable data, the maximum width of the inner tepal was 4.5 mm. Most of the species have white flowers (22/25), two have cream-colored flowers, one has orange flowers, and one, possibly two, species include orange- or yellow-flowered populations.
Cruden specifically says that E. luteola flowers open in the early afternoon. He doesn’t mention a flowering time for E. campechiana but you should probably expect it also to be closed up in the mornings. I don’t know that either species is weather-dependent, and typically Echeandia plants will have many flowers on the stem, in groups of 2 or more, with individual flowers maturing successively from the lowest ones to the tip. In terms of where to find these plants, E. luteola might be anywhere in a forested area in the northern half of the peninsula. Like CICY indicates, E campechiana has mostly been recorded in Campeche state, but (based on that one record from near Sayil) you might come across it in the Puuc region as well.
Turning to the Iris family plants, I realize that the one iNat observation of Eleutherine latifolia on the peninsula is way south in Campeche state, so forget about that one! Alophia silvestris and Cipura campanulata are both native to Yucatan. Both seem to flower for much of the year, with a peak in July–September, so you certainly could come across them. Whether or not you come across any of these plants I’ll be interested to see your observations!
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Here is a story on Mongabay which illustrates the value of observing common little things in one small place over a long period of time: Wildlife lover and artist records 5 decades of change on iconic U.K. river (mongabay.com)
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For the long term, will the data survive view. Harvesting weather data from before the South African Astronomical Observatory in Cape Town, started in 1841.
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Keep it up with your observations. They all totally have value. Much like you, I have no followers but do follow a few. I also have no science background, just a love of all life and post anytime I get a worthy subject whether rare or common. The diversity of life and the mechanisms it uses to perpetuate daily living is the most amazing thing I’ve ever realized. Would love to visit your area and to see and interact with the Ocellated Turkey would be amazing.
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