As an example I have a number of photos of the same species (small bulb plants) in the same locality. The photos are not all the same plant but are of the same species within a few square meters. One has better flowers while another has better foliage. Should these be entered as separate observation…

Simply - you can do both. One observation is for one individual, but it’s a common case when multiple indiviuals from same time and place posted in one observation, so it’s up to you.

In my opinion, several individuals of the same species should always be separate observations, as there may be something unique about the individual that is important to record on it’s own, and each observation should count as a record of an individual.

Again, it’s up to poster, I post things separately, but some may find it exhausting.

You should err on the side of one organism = one observation, wherever practical. Obviously there will be lots of cases where that just doesn’t work in practice (you can’t tell where one individual ends and the next begins in a tuft of moss, for instance) but just as a rule of thumb, that’s the best…

I agree with others that you can decide whether to post all in one observation or as separate observations as you wish. A couple other thoughts: Posting as multiple observations is not just more work for the observer, but also for IDers. If this is an infrequent thing, it isn’t a big deal. Howeve…

Hi PaddyBrown - welcome to the iNat forum! On iNaturalist, An observation records an encounter with an individual organism at a particular time and location. from https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/help#observations1 so if you do know they are different individual plants, log them as separate ob…

I’d like to mention that for many groups of organisms, particularly insects, each individual will have unique aspects in it’s appearance that are important to record separately, in my opinion. Also, don’t worry about putting more pressure on identifiers by uploading many observations… if they feel …

As a high volume (easy stuff) IDer let me say that multiple observations of the same species aren’t much of an issue for me. Single observations with multiple organisms of the same species aren’t an issue either if a) they are really one species and b) I can see that they are one species. And no, a)…

Thanks everyone. This has been most helpful. If I were collecting these for an herbarium I would have noted them as one collection and mounted them on the same mounting board. This is not unacceptable as, in this case, I am sure of my ID but I am aware that this procedure has caused problems in the …

Duplicate observations at same time and place

General

Topic		Replies	Views
Deciding whether multiple photos are a single observation? General	9	566	January 16, 2020
Is posting multiple observations of the same thing allowed? General question	12	730	July 1, 2021
Multiple observations of same plant or animal...what do I do? General question	7	1276	October 12, 2020
Multiple observations of one species in different locations along hike (same day)—should these be posted separately or together? General question , ios-classic-app	10	280	April 26, 2025
Grouping photos General	3	276	March 14, 2022

Duplicate observations at same time and place

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