I noticed recently that the option to sort observations by random was removed on both the app and the iNaturalist website. I’m sure it was for a reason (probably not many people were using it), but I really enjoyed being able to just randomize observations - so often I’d come across something from years ago that hadn’t been ID’d. Without it I can only really ID the most recent observations, as they come in so quickly it’s impossible to make meaningful progress into the past if I sort by recent. How do you all find observations to ID?
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Still there for me, at least on Identify:
I hope it stays! It’s a good way to get older Needs ID that just got missed.
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Oh my goodness you’re right! I constantly mix up Explore and Identify. It is still there! That’s a relief - thank you!
I’m still curious though about how iNatters search for observations to ID. I don’t have any particular expertise in any taxon, so I like sorting by random - but sometimes I also use the map to find things in a particular area I’m familiar with. I wonder what the most popular strategy is?
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Usually I sort by recent observations in Canada (or just my province), maybe selecting Unknown Species or a particular animal/taxon I want to be more familiar with. I can’t ID most of it (yet) so am not concerned about missing a specific thing that I’m good at IDing.
Random does sound like a good idea though, much better for catching older observations. I didn’t know it existed until this thread, should try messing around with filters more..
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Sometimes I search on a location, like my state or an interesting county. Sometimes I search by species. Sometimes I look at observation in a particular project or by a person. It all varies.
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I just search for “insecta”, have the lowest taxa at subclass so I can see pterygota, and go gambling with random on, It’s a lot of fun ^^
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You can also follow a certain taxa or a region/place so observation with the said criteria will pop up in your feed and new observations will be seen first as soon as they are added.
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I use browser bookmarks to quickly navigate to my usual ID settings (taxon + locality). When you make changes to the identify settings, it will change the URL in your browser - you can then drag that URL to your browser’s toolbar/bookmarks and use it for quick access. So I have a few bookmarks for “Spiders - Texas” “Spiders - USA” “Arthropods - Texas” “Unknowns - Texas” and so on.
Pro tip if you do a lot of IDing: you can manually add &per_page=100 to the identify URL and it will give you 100 observations per page instead of the default 30 - will save some time clicking over to the next page.
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This might be helpful
https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/search+urls
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I search for anything in Needs ID that was entered the previous day (to give observers time to link observations or do whatever), and browse for anything that
- has no ID or is IDed “Life”
- is a plant that I might could tell whether is a dicot, monocot, fern, or conifer
- is something I know, such as a cat, chicken, Odocoileus (around here that’s a white-tail, but I’ve found more mule deer these days) or black bear
- is an insect unidentified to order.
The date entered is in the observer’s time zone, not mine, so if people elsewhere in the world do the same as I, they get the same obs to identify.
but you can deliberately ‘sort by ascending’ and by ‘date observed’
Then you can enjoy moving an obs which might have been here for 10 years or more. If you use Random - you miss the obvious duplicates, which are uploaded in sequence (I have just looked at that!). And also the field marks uploaded as a string of separate obs which need to be combined.
If you want obs to ID … there are gazillions left over from CNC, which will need sorting out, eventually. Choose a taxon, or location, or taxon / location, or a burnt out and despairing taxon specialist you know ?
I have a pile of bookmarked URLs. From which I will be clearing most of the CNC ones. Unless I am determined to clear That One - because otherwise I keep seeing them as I ID, until they are done.
Thank you for identifying. 75% of IDs across iNat are done by a burnt out 1% of identifiers.
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There are many ways to do that (which is one reason why the platform is so powerful). Some of the more challenging observations will be found on the “Similar Species” tab of the taxon page. Click the number in the upper righthand corner of a thumbnail to launch the Explore page. From there it’s just a few clicks to the Identify page.
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With the qualifier that it won’t catch anything uploaded without an ID but with it added later, or anything uploaded with a higher-level ID that’s then identified to your followed taxon. In practice, ‘following’ feels a lot less useful than it should be (though I do use and appreciate it).
I look at daily finds in two locations: Louisiana and Denmark. Gives about 50 images per day to identify
Besides the obvious - filtering for your prefered taxa in a certain location - I also use my own observations as a starting point for some more random IDs which might sometimes get me hooked for a while. When I get new iNat lifers I usually will at least look at the map to get an idea how common it is observed and how widespreat it is. I will often see some weirdos on the map, like obvious distribution in Europe but some strange observations in the Americas or something.. I will then go and clean those in most cases very obviously wrong IDs. I. Some cases it will lead me to dive a bit deeper and to get more into a certain taxon for a while.
When I do my prefered taxa I will often mix the filter settings up a bit.. do in ascending or descending order of upload, random (as O ID diplicates anyways, I really do not care too much about missing them), certain locations only and so on
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I save a link with each different genus or species I’d like to identify. If you want to do the same, just change/ add the taxa numbers below:
You can add as many species as you would like, it’ll just take a bit to load the more you add.
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In addition to all of the suggestions already offered, I’ll add two more.
First, because many identifiers give broad IDs to plants (monocot, dicot, fern) but many experts only look at finer IDs (family to species), observations can be stuck with those broad IDs for a long time. I’ll occasionally review those at kingdom to class rank with this link: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?hrank=kingdom&iconic_taxa=Plantae&lrank=class&quality_grade=needs_id&reviewed=false
(If you’re only interested in a particular region, add a boundary box, as I do.)
Second, if you do identify particular families, genera, or species, occasionally look at the appropriate Phylogenetic Projects for ‘unknown’ observations. That can uncover more of those observations stuck at unknown.
With either approach, I end up scrolling through a large number of observations while only being able to help with a small percentage of them. I try not to be discouraged by that.
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My identify url is like this: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?iconic_taxa=Aves%2CActinopterygii%2CMollusca%2CArachnida%2CInsecta%2CMammalia&order_by=updated_at&place_id=any&verifiable=true&lat=17.74&lng=83.25&radius=620&photos=true&without_taxon_id=26172%2C20978
I order by updated_at so I get to see older ones where there is new activity and discussions, and those are in need of help to get >2/3 ratios.
I stick to radius of 620km (sparser observations here lol) from my lat, lng coordinates as that captures most major cities around me while also not moving regions where I have to learn more keys (I am starting slowly across families). I filter out a few taxons by without_taxon_id that I may never learn lol.
I did go across older observations once within that area, on two different selections (genus/species ones, and higher than family ones to try to move them to lower levels), so now I don’t have FOMO on older ones and continue to move on daily updates with above URL and nothing more. Occasionally, if I learn a new Genus key, I go broader areas by filtering only that taxon (like Caulpera seaweeds I did last week)
I like how the identify popup has shortcuts, for broader keyboard clicks across pages I use keyboard mapper for browser https://github.com/brookhong/Surfingkeys
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/prolific-identifiers-how-do-you-filter-for-observations-to-id/54481/
Meanwhile plants are a nightmare -
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/split-plantae-into-several-iconic-taxa/24698/57
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Also, thanks to @DianaStuder , I have a saved link for “my housekeeping slice of African flora,” which is African Araceae stuck at subtribe or above - although as of today there are none.
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