I am very selective about faving observations. I only fave the ones which I find to be both aesthetically pleasing and that stand out as in some way distinct from other photos that I see. Looking through my favorites now, I see that they tend to have dramatic composition, and oftentimes bold colors. Of my currently 70 faves, only one stands at State of Matter Life, observed by @lucyinthesea:
The reason it is State of Matter Life is that there is disagreement as to whether it is Red Algae or Bryozoans. (My vote is for Bryozoans)
So, those of you who take on the challenge of State of Matter Life, how often do you find faves there? What was it about them that made them your faves?
First off, this is a very clever idea for a post and I am a fan. Second, I have 2 favorites that are at ālifeā. I favorited both for the same reason, which is I have no idea what I am looking at and thatās exciting to me.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/65912711 is particularly interesting because Iām familiar with the area and know that this is weird looking compared to anything else Iāve seen there. Honestly, sometimes I think it may not even be alive. But I canāt tell, which keeps me invested.
I think all my favs are things I had no clue as to the identity of when I encountered them. Some have been identified, some are still at very general IDs, and a couple are still unknowns. These thread-like things which might be a fungus or plant roots: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/84124844, and these things which I canāt tell if they are part of the plant, or insect eggs, or: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/102987569
We faved them because we are curious about them and want to be able to check in on them from time to time. So favoriting is an easy way to keep track on our timeline. Favoriting doesnāt mean to us, āThis is among our favorite things weāve ever seen.ā
My faves have evolved over the last 7 years. I have not picked too many based on aesthetics - it evolved to collecting species I wanted to compare, then it became a source for reminding me of species as I went through State of matter Life - now as I look into bees more it has become a place to have reminder species as well as all of the previous.
Probably placing them in a journal would be better but not as fast to retrieve.
Many of my almost 100 were because of looking through State of matter Life but were resolved at that time. I currently have 8 that remain State of matter Life.
One of my saved favourites I share with @anon83178471 - the sea ribbon?
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/1455708 is an interesting discussion between ascomycetes and terrestrial algae as well as good use of embedding comment images and how to achieve that.
In a word, no. But I only just worked out how to view my faves. ( donāt know why I missed it before), and found a lot of fungi, and a frogā¦ turns out I discovered another shortcut on the ID page :)ā¦
But otherwise just ferns that are in someway outstanding, like this one https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/103668747
Doesnāt look much, but is the first of the species to be identified in inland Victoria Australia, over 600km from the nearest then known (small) populations in the state.
