So the ID-a-thon has ended! Over the past five weeks, so much work has been put into this challenge, and hopefully we have all come out a bit more knowledgable or a bit more experienced. I know I sure did!! What week do you think you felt the most comfortable IDing, and which week did you learn the…

[image] JimAnderson: I enjoy adding a more detailed id to an observation from a few months ago, then checking after a few minutes or hour later and finding that someone with more knowledge has added a more detailed identification. Jim, you reminded me of this comment: [image] #IdentiFriday…

@AdamWargon Thanks for sharing that. I’ve been pleasantly surprised so see a couple of my identifications from a few months ago have identifications added during the id-a-thon.

Do we have any stats for what percentage of observations were at Kingdom before the event vs after the event? Some quantitative stats rather than anecdotal or individual impacts?

We are promised an iNat blog post ‘this week’ about the ID-a-thon. Those are the stats that will be interesting !

I had only tried a few IDs before the ID-a-thon. I wasn’t comfortable doing Unknowns, which mainly seemed to be indistinct photos. I concentrated on a few local plant species that are very common and hard to get wrong if a few key traits are in the photo. My goal was to clear some bulk from the que…

My understanding is that for 99% of lichens, you need a microscope to ID to species.

Luckily that still leaves 100’s of lichens that can be sight id’d! Though you do have to avoid species with lookalikes and those that need chem tests to be 100% in certain region. But some are so distinctive that a closeup view will be enough.

There are a lot of lichens you can (given the right keys) get down to to more than the subphyllum. Getting back to the thread theme. This ID-athon helped me learn about groups I don’t typically ID, It encouraged me to learn about Poales. There is so much there I’ll not be great at IDs but I was abl…

I’m very pleased to read about the results of the ID-a-thon today, here: ID-a-thon Results · iNaturalist Five thousand new identifiers are a lot! Reducing the numbers of Unknown observations by a third is fantastic! Congratulations to the iNat staff for a very successful effort!

ID-a-thon Impact

General

mkanimallover January 19, 2026, 10:11pm 13

That’s amazing! I’m glad to hear you were able to find something to help with, and great job getting out of your comfort zoom! Welcome to the forum!

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ID-a-thon Impact

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