It’s possible, but the designation may not stick. Some of us worked to get the common name of Holcus lanatus changed from Yorkshire Fog to Velvetgrass for North America because Velvetgrass is the name that’s been used for it by farmers and researchers since it’s introduction to this continent. Finally the change was made! We relaxed happily. Then there was some iNaturalist update and it’s back to Yorkshire Fog.
Yorkshire Fog is a fine, poetic name and all, but it’s not the North American common name (except among iNatters, who are becoming reconciled to the inevitable, sad though it is). But if we again try to change the name back to the more descriptive and longer-standing name (in North America), will it stay changed? Probably not. Sigh.
So no, it’s not always possible in practice to designate a regional common name in iNaturalist.
Common names should reflect common usage wherever possible, but I think it would be challenging for all kinds of reasons to “get it right” consistently, with names varying by region as well as subcultures, where multiple names are used by different people. Tiger Lily was a good example. Depending on when and where, this can refer to different lilies. I don’t know if anyone ever says “Columbia Lily.” If you know enough to call it that, chances are you’re going to call it “Lilium columbianum.”
I thought, “Oh, no! They’ve got it right and I didn’t notice!” So I checked. Sadly, I was right. My observations? Yorkshire Fog. My Oregon county? Yorkshire Fog. General ID? Yorkshire Fog.
You know, I didn’t care much about this – an annoyance, sure, but so many things are. Then a friend was frustrated and worked to get it changed, so I supported him. I was pleasantly surprised when iNaturalist changed it to Velvetgrass for us North Americans. A small but nice change.
The really odd thing, in my opinion, is that it changed back. Really? Not all that important, but annoying – and mystifying. How/why was this changed back after somebody went to the trouble of fixing it?
If you look at the list of common names and regional assignments on the taxon page, the common name assigned for the US is “velvetgrass” and for Washington it is “common velvet grass”, so I’m not sure why it is displaying “Yorkshire fog” for you.
I don’t know exactly how iNat decides to prioritize one common name vs. another if you don’t have a regional preference set. You might see if changing or setting a preferred lexica for common names in your user profile settings solves the problem.
When did it change for you? The taxon history suggest no one has edited the English common names recently, but I’m wondering whether the new feature of being able to select multiple common name lexica did something that affected existing settings.
Recently – and it may have been when I first signed up for this Forum, but I’m sorry I don’t remember – I was asked if I wanted to use the common names that are used in North America. I thought it was a weird question. And I think I clicked yes and haven’t seen anything about it since. It’s possible that the account of @sedgequeen is set to “no” and that she may be able to toggle this.
I’ve had it happen too. Especially with species that have a wide variety in morphology. (I witnessed some ladybugs in areas where iNat isn’t being used as much being identified by the engine as Harmonia axyridis even though they were definitely something else, for example)
However, I will say that as far as I’m aware this problem is far less prevalent here than on other IDing platforms (PlantNet for example). I think iNaturalist benefits strongly from its identifiers and from many of them being experts in their fields who know how and to what specificity they can ID an observation. Of course, they cannot singlehandedly review every observation, though. Still, it is incredible what work some put into identifying observations for others and even comment helpful and interesting information. And it makes this website/app a lot better than any that just rely on computer vision.
I think newer users may select the first suggestion that comes up, I know I started that way, the more I learn (and other iNaturalists teach me) the better I’ve gotten about how to check and document many more details which are helpful for identifying one organism from another. Now, even if I have no idea what I’ve found, I at least know how to get the most useful image and information for it.
I answered “Yes” to the question about wanting to use “common names that are used in North America”. It would be great if someone could clarify what the setting actually does, and how to change it.
For example, does it really only look at the continent, or is there also a regional component to the common name selector?
Also found out that on Inat there are two relatively similar species of Acronicta moths ( one from the USA and one from Eurasia) where one is the Gray Dagger and the other species is the Grey Dagger. I’d imagine that this causes quite a lot of confusion amongst observers.
You can change your settings on your profile (my iNat interface is not set to English, but the labels should be something like settings → display → select lexicon + select region).
When users add common names for individual taxa, they can optionally specify a place in addition to the applicable language. This may be a continent or country or smaller region (e.g. a state). The common names that are displayed for you are based on the ones that have been assigned a language and place that matches your settings.
Presumably if you choose a smaller region (say, the state of Washington) for your preferred common names, the system knows that the place is contained within the United States and North America and it will use the common names for these larger regions if no common name has been specified for the state. (I have not tested this, however.)
An odd example is I have corrected a TON of naked moth pupae in the ground that were IDed as random European geometers and even cossid moths. I’d think iNat would simply ID them as “Lepidoptera” but they always suggest one of several random geometers. These always have to be corrected.
The Copper Underwing and Eurasian Copper Underwing are not only almost identical but have very similar Latin names too. Luckily the dataset for each is so massive now that the AI recommends the proper one for the region. It used to be much worse.
One I have come across a few times while working through Araceae: the initial ID is “Duckweeds.” I enlarge the picture of the algal mat, scan it very carefully to see if there are any duckweed leaves mixed in. Then, finding none, I suggest my ID of “Green Algae” (which of course bumps it back to “Plants”), and add the comment, “I do not see any duckweed leaves in this algal mat.”
The likely explanation I can think of is that people have heard duckweeds referred to as “pond scum,” so they assume that all “pond scum” is duckweed.
And it get’s stranger – because “Elephant-Ears” is also a name for Bergenia (Saxifragaceae), and “Elephant’s Ear” is also a name for Macaranga tanarius (a tree! Euphorbiaceae). I have come across both of those misidentified as Colocaseiae.
I am beginning to understand the opinions expressed on here about just getting rid of common names. People are not very imaginitive or original at all, and basically anything with a big, wide leaf is going to remind somebody of an elephant’s ear.
I much prefer scientific names because they’re so much more precise than common names. Using scientific names only would drive a lot of people away. So we’re stuck with this kind of ambiguity.