It is ok if I will post my entomological collection like observations on iNaturalist?
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I am asking a question because i know that iNatutalist usually use for share a photos of alive creatures. A posting of dead butterflyes is not out of rules?
welcome to the forum
posting photos of dead butterflies you have personally collected is completely fine, just remember to put the location and date where you collected each specimen, not where/when you take the photographs.
iNaturalist definitely isn’t just for alive organisms, dead or alive is totally fine
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A couple of general considerations that may be obvious but I think are worth mentioning anyway:
Take photos that allow for ID. Specimen photos can be really useful references for taxa that often can’t be identified in the field – but this only applies if the relevant features are visible in the photos. The rule that observations on iNat should be ID’d according to the evidence provided still applies for specimens – even if those specimens were identified in person by a top expert in the field. I see a surprising number of observations of pinned specimens where the observer does not provide close-up images and I always wonder what IDers are expected to do with such observations.
If that taxon in question is one where a permit is required for collection in your area, make sure that you only post observations of specimens that were collected with a corresponding permit. I don’t mean that you need to formally prove that you have a permit, just that if you don’t have one, it is not a great idea to post evidence of illegal activity online, both in terms of your own liability and in terms of possible negative effects for the iNat community in general if it is seen as supporting non-authorized specimen collection.
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Thank you!
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