I did a search for “Trilobite” and “Graptolite” and drew a blank. These are pretty common fossils. Are fossil observations allowed on iNaturalist?

Generally iNat is about currently living organisms and recently extinct ones, not fossils. It’s not against the rules, but you have to indicate that there is no “recent sign of organism”, which will drop it to ‘casual’ grade. In addition, there is the possibility of making a place easy to find for…

AFAICT, extinct species do not count as observations and are not findable on iNat - it makes little sense to add them here.

they do count as observations, and they are findable; it’s just that [image] earthknight: you have to indicate that there is no “recent sign of organism”, which will drop it to ‘casual’ grade casual records are still observations and can still be found, they’re just excluded from maps and se…

Weird: Microtus henseli · iNaturalist “0 observations”: one not annotated in August, one adult in October :D

that species page is counting verifiable observations, which does not include casual observations here they are for you: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&verifiable=any&taxon_id=1284224 note the ‘2 observations’

[image] thebeachcomber: which does not include casual observations It includes them, just click on “life stage”. :D (agreed, it’s a bug, a funny one) But as I said, extinct species [hence the ‘taxa’ page, the one you end up on after googling for its name] appear not to count as observations …

I’m referring to the observations count reading as ‘zero’, which is the point you were trying to make, no? [image] GeolTel: “0 observations”:

OK, miscommunication, see edit.

[image] GeolTel: Don’t waste time and bandwidth adding photos of fossils or broccoli pizza. It may be a “waste of time” if discoverability and CV is your goal. Although if this applies to all extinct species, then that defines the vintage photos documenting Dusky Seaside Sparrows as equally a…

Well, if storing pics of fossils or other legal-and-relevant-DQA stuff (e.g. Dusky Seaside Sparrows whatever that is, or broccoli-pineapple pizzas) is a goal, go for it. Looks like it’s ok with the Terms of Use, and it’s much cheaper than Dropbox :)

Does iNaturalist allow observations of fossils?

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Does iNaturalist allow observations of fossils?

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