Helping people make better observations -- a checklist

[danlharp]

@einsum

Always try to click multiple angles for any species

Good point, I’m going to add that to the initial photo checklist, thank you!

[danlharp]

@jhbratton

If you are photographing invertebrates on plants, say what the plant is, or if you don’t know what the plant is, make another observation of the plant and link the two.

I’ve gone back and forth on this. On the checklist, in some places I have suggested to make notes of the habitat or substrate – might be a good idea to add that in everywhere.. I thought about telling people to link observations, but finally decided not to, as this seemed a little much for iNat beginners.

[danlharp]

@alanyoshioka

I would recommend making the focus on SE Massachusetts explicit in the list itself for the sake of those who might wish to adapt it to their own region.

Good point, changed title accordingly.

@alanyoshioka

So perhaps add a remark to the introduction saying the checklist of tips there applies generally, even when you are unsure which, if any, of the more specific categories that follow might include your organism.

Really good point, I’ll figure out how to word this and add it in. Thank you.

[danlharp]

@onyxrat

I see “with something to give scale“ is mentioned at the end for mollusks but this applies to a lot of categories. Maybe there is a way to generalize this near the top?

Good point, done.

[danlharp]

@phma

Don’t use non-metric units. Most of the world doesn’t know them.

Oh gosh yes, I agree. It was in an earlier draft, but then I thought about my target audience, and honestly having to use metric units is going to be a dealbreaker for them. So what I did was to give a couple of examples where I use metric units – in other words, rather than telling people “you have to use metric” and having them shut down, I’m hoping that I’ll set an example so they think, “Oh I get it, using metric units is the default, guess I better learn how to do that.” So this is my with my teacher’s hat on, trying to figure out how to pull resistant learners along without them realizing that they’re getting pulled along.

[danlharp]

@jenn1199

Mammals: front and rear photos, in other words, photo shows the head end and tail end - some species of North American deer, for example, can be most easily identified by the tail size and color.

Thanks, I added front view and rear view to the checklist. Actually, I spent a lot of time thinking about mammals, and poring through a couple of books on mammals. Fortunately we only have one species of deer in this area, so that’s not a problem. But I found it hard to come up with simple checklists for mammals. Muridae, for example, are fairly difficult – tail length is about the only way to ID certain species in my area, and unless the animal is dead you’re not going to get tail length. Chiroptera are tough, but fortunately there aren’t many observations of bats in our area.

[danlharp]

Thank you to everyone who commented on the Google Doc, I’m slowly going through your excellent suggestions. I’m so appreciative of the expertise of the iNat community!

[DianaStuder]

Sad beetles … maybe a general prompt for little creatures - we need more than - Is that dirt on your lens, or an insect? You don’t have beetles that demand a photo ? This one looks as if it was invented by AI !

Linking obs can easily be done by the next identifier - but the observer needs to make a good obs for the plant ‘host’ for galls, or bugs, or birds …

[phma]

@yayemaster

I would strongly warn against picking up any turtle

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/291143299
Fourth picture is the turtle upside-down, with the stick I used to turn it. I then turned it rightside-up and it walked into the bushes.

[wayne_j]

@phma

Fourth picture is the turtle upside-down

I’m a member of a box turtle study group in a local park. The administrators of the group emphasize not to turn the turtles on their backs, they say it disorientates them. I’m not real sure it does, but I assume they know what they are talking about.

We photograph the plastrons by holding them like this:

We carry a small bottle of hand sanitizer in our turtle kit and use it after handling each turtle.

[DianaStuder]

@wayne_j

not to turn the turtles on their backs, they say it disorientates them

Do humans and turtles have similar balance organs? Humans need the Epley manoeuvre - if they are dizzy.

[lothlin]

https://www.inaturalist.org/journal/smpbiologist-jwilliams/116151-taking-better-fungi-observations

Here’s a journal entry I wrote up on this very subject for Fungi. Hopefully it is useful, feel free to use any of my pictures; I should have everything set to CC-by-NC, so just credit me :3 (if’s it not set to that setting let me know and I’ll fix it)

EDIT: I’ll try to remember to take a look at the google doc later

[spiphany]

I think rather than trying to exhaustively cover what to photograph for what family, it would be more useful to focus on general guidance that is widely applicable for many taxa, divided into broad groups – e.g. the strategies for how/what to photograph are going to be similar for many insects and for certain other arthropods like spiders (get as many different views as possible, top and side are important; if it has visible wing venation a clear photo of this is often useful; learn how to use automatic or manual focus on your device in order to get shots of small creatures hanging in mid-air, etc.).

Another thing that I think is important to emphasize is that while good documentation techniques will give you the best chances of getting a specific ID, not everything can be identified to species level even from good photos. What is identifiable may vary within a particular taxon – even “difficult” groups (flies, bees) typically have some species that are easy in a particular place, and normally “easy” groups may have a few species that cannot always be reliably ID’d. This should not be seen as a problem. I think it is really important for users to let go of the expectation that everything can and should be ID’d to species all the time, or that one has somehow failed if it turns out that this is not possible. This expectation is unrealistic and I think tends to reduce the pleasure that one might get from using iNat compared to a more open-ended approach that any ID that helps me learn more than I knew before is valuable and useful.

[spacewhales]

ime americans are taught “in science class we use metric” so it might stick. the association may already be there.

[danly]

Could you have some inexpensive rulers that folks could borrow, with both metric and non-metric units? Or maybe there are some printable ones?

[phma]

I’d rather have one that’s only metric. The tape I carry when surveying, to measure the height of the total station, is dual, though. The longtape and the 8 m shorttape are just metric.

[danlharp]

@lothlin

Here’s a journal entry I wrote up on this very subject for Fungi. Hopefully it is useful, feel free to use any of my pictures

Thank you for the link to your journal entry, I had not seen that. And thanks for the offer to use photos… but I finally decided not to use photos, for two reasons: (1) finding good photos for all parts of the checklist was too time-consuming, and (2) photos took up too much space.

HOWEVER, my checklist is for beginners, and I believe there’s a real need for a similar che3\cklist for advanced beginners / intermediate users of iNat, so maybe someone will take the hint and develop such a checklist.

[danlharp]

@spiphany

I think it is really important for users to let go of the expectation that everything can and should be ID’d to species all the time, or that one has somehow failed if it turns out that this is not possible.

I agree. My checklist does warn repeatedly that some organisms cannot be IDed to species. Also, when I use this at iNat events, I plan to further reinforce that point – and the point that you don’t have to ID everything to species.

[danlharp]

@danly

Could you have some inexpensive rulers that folks could borrow, with both metric and non-metric units? Or maybe there are some printable ones?

Really good idea. I actually already do this with children’s programs, where we use pencil-and-paper field notebooks, with rulers printed on the back cover. (Nota bene: we do not use iNat with elementary aged children, pencil-and-paper works better for that age group.) So yes, when handing out printed copies, it would be super easy to print rulers on the back cover. In fact, I think this is going to tip me in favor of doing this as a printed handout, rather than placing it on the web or in an app.

[henryy1355]

Here are free printable scales, maybe one will work for you. And that online superstore has inexpensive metal scales. Search on metric scale ruler.