I personally find it to be very fascinating when someone explains how they figured out what species a sighting was with different identification tactics after placing an ID on a species, and I wish it was a bit more prevalent as it could help newer users to the app. Just wanted to put it out there a…

I was mainly thinking of fish and arthropods, however I feel this would be helpful for many other groups of animals as well.

When I had wrote the part about naturalists sharing how they identify differences between similar species, I just wanted to see what interesting replies I could get and that me and other naturalists could read and note down for future IDs.

I recall there is an ID feature in the AI for Similar Species. I’ve wished the AI could evolve to include difference between for such similar species.

I know this comment won’t reach the right people, but it would be nice if when identifiers do take the time to explain their ID, they think about making it a learning experience for the observer. Specifically, instead of saying “I went by the color and shape of the leaves” or “the number of eyes” o…

I (very) occasionally write about ID issues in my journal in more detail. Mostly it’s just to keep a record for myself after I’ve sat down with a bunch of resources to figure out how to tell two similar species apart. However, these could also be used to link to when doing IDs and sometimes I hope t…

I’m somewhat new to ID’ing things but I’ve learned a handful of things I wouldn’t mind sharing since we’re on the topic. It’s a good idea to learn large groups of taxa like families, then go from there. If you know that something is in a certain family, you can look for what genera or species are co…

well first is that don’t mess things up by idying what AI says because sometimes AI also mess up, and second if someone disagrees your id ask “why you disagreed?”, this will increase your knowledge or just change your perspective abut that observation, if you are new to idying try to id little obser…

[image] cthawley: For IDers, it’s often a choice between explaining a few IDs with comments or actually making many more ID but not including comments. Nailed it.

[image] cthawley: I think it’s great to ask how people made IDs in a comment though! When IDers know that someone cares and is actually going to read the explanation, I think many are happy to share their expertise. I completely agree. If the IDer doesn’t respond, the observer can always ask …

Identification tips for IDs

General

jasonhernandez74 February 18, 2022, 4:05am 11

Some of the comments I’ve seen on fish would disappoint you; they explain bumping an ID back to genus because two similar-looking species can only be distinguished by counting fin rays and scale rows.

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If not sure, is it better to try and be specific with i.d or leave it vague? General	43	2760	December 4, 2022
Why do some of my observations get identified as something that looks completely different than the comparison photos? General question	44	1934	December 23, 2022
I'm no specialist, how should I proceed with my observations? General	36	2485	March 5, 2022
Comments made when suggesting alternative identifications (or corrections) General	20	2308	September 6, 2020
Is it useful to write out my identification steps? General	52	2061	March 30, 2023

Identification tips for IDs

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