When i was exploring a nearby creek after a moderate downpour, i stumbled upon a common-looking planthopper simply hanging under a leaf, I observed it and it seems to have already gotten used to my presence since that planthopper seems to let me observe them. I tried identifying it to iNat AI or an expert of planthopper from the app but it seems they cannot identify it well despite the clear picture, but ended up labelling it as an Dichoptera anyway as per my ID suggestion, but the expert seems doubtful to the specimen as they have never seen a Dichoptera with such short cephalic process before, and definitely looks interesting to them.
This happens almost every day, somewhere in the world, on iNaturalist. With more humans running around with smartphones (cameras), and with very little funding for taxonomy, species are constantly being discovered that were thought extinct, or haven’t been seen in a very long time. They were right under our noses, but nobody was looking. Very often the photographer doesn’t realize at the time that it is an important observation. That’s why ABC:
Always be Curious
Always be Clicking
Always be Capturing records
Always be Cataloguing
Etc. You can pick an acronym that works for you. You never know who might find your observation valuable!
Decided to photograph a Lasius neoniger nest with my macro lens, just to document that they were present in a location I had not seen them before, but they are the normal ants in yards across much of the eastern US, so I didn’t think of them as interesting, but I’m now in Colorado where they are not quite as ubiquitous, though still common.
I noticed through the lens that they seemed to lack hairs on the scape and tibia, which would rule out L. neoniger, but the nest structure was atypical for L. americanus. Noticing this, I took a bunch of close ups of the tibia and made sure to get one of the mandibular teeth (which is hard and not something I do for most ants) just in case I noticed scape and tibia hairs in the photos after upload, in which case the mandibular teeth would be needed to distinguish L. neoniger from L. pallitarsus. (they are also different in L. neoniger and L. americanus, but the hairs are an easier way to tell those apart)
On upload I confirmed that there really were no scape and tibia hairs, but the mandibles had neoniger teeth, not americanus teeth. I asked other ant IDers, wondering if this was some sort of hybrid, and it turned out to be the 6th ever iNat obs of L. crypticus, a western US species with iNat obs only in WA and AZ
Wow, your way of observation is so sharp and highly precise! It shows your great perception and strong need of research. Do you perhaps have expertise in ants?
many of them are from under represented observation areas. Many of them are of small creatures I find at night, in various forests, which “normal people” mighy not spend as much time in, as more “creepy crawlie” focused people.
There are so many creatures I am weak on, like if I see one of the many thousand species of leaf beetles, I am unlikely to know if its extremly common, or extremly not.
I have 225 at 10 or fewer, mostly from New Mexico, USA. There are so many species out there relative to the number of active observers, especially for the small insects like parasitic wasps, microLeps, and native bees.
Yeah, moulds, mildues,etc I wouldnt know where to start, but I am sure many are very widespread.
This is possibly my fave parasitoid wasp observation https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/267873244 possibly still the only known live wild photo (Outside the person who described the species and managed to rare one in capitity from an egg). It parasitoids the eggs of cave weta.
