UPDATE NOV 5: New card available, click here to jump to it
In conjunction with IdentiFriday and Making identifying more fun/interesting, may I present “Identifier’s Bingo.” To start, choose your difficulty level:
EASY: Make one ID per square
MEDIUM: Make 5 IDs per square
HARD: Make 10 or more IDs per square
When you’re done, comment BINGO (5 in a row) or BLACKOUT (complete all squares). You don’t have to admit your difficulty level unless you want to, and there’s no prize but the likes or replies on your comment <3
*does not require that you make an ID on the pumpkin. Please stick to those most obviously captive (carved, sitting on porches, etc) and if you don’t see any obvious ones, another identifier probably cleared them out. I’m sure there will be more over the next few days.
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Ideas for future bingo cards are also welcome!
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suggestions for genus to species:
Ricinus communis
Nerium oleander
suggestions for places needing attention with lots of obs:
Taiwan
India
Denmark
friend who wants IDs:
me pls
mistakes that need fixin’:
“bushtit” is often selected for bushes (put into Tracheophyta)
try Argiope spiders, the species are relatively distinct + observed often
back someone up:
you can always follow up on my coarse IDs, I’ve got tens of thousands without an Improving
map outliers:
I swear there was a thread talking about this… give me a moment…
new taxon:
thinking about it, depends on your current skill set
auto-pilot can also be for marking as cultivated… go get them cats, dogs, pigs, horses etc
physical field guides:
you can often find virtual copies of physical books through google books/scholar or your local library
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Ginkgo biloba (actually the entire phylum Ginkgoopsida is monotypic!)
Nandina domestica
Heteromeles arbutifolia (not an easy ID though, I don’t recommend trying to learn it if you’ve never seen one)
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One suggestion: change the ID some unknowns link to sort by random. That way it won’t be skewed towards newer observations, and if multiple people try it at the same time they won’t end up racing (not that that isn’t also fun).
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BINGO
I did the first 5 (the easy ones, I’d say). I wasn’t counting very well but I think I did at least five each. Great game, I will try again later!
(P.S. you misspelled “outliers”.)
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Annotate plants as ‘flowering’ ‘no evidence of flowering’ ‘flower budding’ or ‘fruiting’ on autopilot
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Fix observations accidentally marked ‘captive’ by searching for captive observations in places where it makes no sense for something to be captive, like a squirrel on a mountaintop in a national park.
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Great idea! Might also be something (provided good guidance, of course) for biology courses or even school projects.
Also, BINGO!
Took the first row (5 IDs for each field), choosing Calypso as a monotypic species and after I ran out after four observations, chose Homo for the last one 
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omg … lots of school classes playing ID bingo …
I am not convinced I would like the outcome …
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No way, I didn’t realise Nerium only had a single species. I’ve been one of those annoying people only IDing it to genus. Well, that gives me a whole bunch of things to fix, if I ever run out of things to fix!
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This is a wicked cool idea! And luckily today is rainy (and I’m still stiff from yesterday’s hike), so once I have some coffee, the game is ON!
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Here’s an ID that could use backing up: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/98521733
ETA: Done! Thank you, @carnifex!
“You have won the coveted iNat-ter badge, wear it with pride!”
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BINGO for the last row! One captive pumpkin, 5 or 6 State of Matter Life observations moved onward, a few random IDs on my last birthday, a bunch of Chicory IDs in New England, USA, and I consulted Tom Murray’s Insects of New England & New York to learn how to ID Locust Borers (which I’ve never IDed before, and there was a grand total of one observation in New England that needed IDing).
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Ideas for future bingo squares:
Make annotations on 25 of your IDs (ETA: or your own observations, for that matter).
Pair up with another iNatter to push each other’s IDs to Research Grade (assuming the observations deserve Research Grade!). For example, there are now a bunch of unconfirmed Chicory observations in New England that I can’t move to Research Grade, because I was the one who IDed them to Chicory in the first place.
Pick your next far-off vacation spot for when the pandemic is over and practice IDing species there (for example, my sister lives in Melbourne, Australia, and someday I am going there, so I might as well learn some of the common local species now).
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I feel like that second vertical line from the left has me written all over it. I often find monotypics and push them along, I’m from a small forgettable place, so those are the places I like to focus on, and love IDing outliers and oddballs haha.
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What does “go auto-pilot” mean?
Only that not much brain power will be required. The other thread described it as “robot mode”
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