388 … I slowed down a bit this week and needed a break from the pisaurids every now and then to do some more general stuff (pushing “Aranae” form around the world a bit further for example). Just cleaned out the need ID of Mariana islands for a change.
But I will keep going… one day I will be done 
How I spent my IdentiFriday:
I understand that someone was trying to show the red seeds when they chose the seed puff as the taxon picture for Red-seeded Dandelion; but they don’t seem to have considered the psychology of our user base. In the CV’s thumbnail, you can’t make out the color of the seeds. You only see a seed puff. So if someone’s observation is of a dandelion seed puff, and the several CV suggestions show various dandelion flowers and one seed puff, guess which one they will pick?
So, first I changed the taxon picture to one which I hope emphasizes the smaller size of the flower head. Then, I went through observations identified as “Red-seeded Dandelion,” and added disagreeing IDs to the seed puffs that were either clearly Section Taraxacum or lacked sufficient evidence to ID them to section. (And while I was at it, corrected the genus of several Sonchus seed puffs which were also IDed as “Red-seeded Dandelion.”)
It reminds me of this feature request (yet the use case is different):
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/ideas-for-a-revamped-explore-observations-search-page/8439/157
Going to go through Dagestan project, quite a lot of birds and tons of insects there https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?project_id=bioraznoobrazie-dagestana
Isn’t it so satisfying to see swaths of difficult observations become tucked out of identifiers’ way for now!
The last chunk was easy to find because they were all in the “no evidence” project. There are many more of the same, but they are inconveniently scattered through years’ worth of Life observations. I started tagging you yesterday but realized that will get way too spammy, and that route only gets to 1 person per tag.
So, following in @jeanphilippeb’s footsteps, I’ve just made a project to try to coordinate things!
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/variable-species-and-other-life
Edit: It’s now a traditional project, for manual additions and removals
inspired by another thread, i finished cleaned up a few old identifications on my own observations this morning.
not sure what i’ll try to tackle when i get back later this afternoon…
Determined to get to the bottom of Pre-Mavericks for the Western Cape.
On the way I have reached 85K IDs for others.
@lotteryd, I think I found all the observations where you mentioned me, but my internet access has been misbehaving the last few days, so I may have missed some. The little demonic internet trolls have let me into their kingdom again today, so I’ll try to catch up.
No worries, if I come across them again I’ll add them to that new project so they’ll be findable. ;)
When I checked this project some while ago there was not much for me to do… but it seems there are some pages with spider observations now :-)…
Sorry, guys. I spent so much time working on identifying my dandelion observations that I have yet to upload, I don’t think I’ll have time to provide many IDs tonight.
I’m still keeping alabama as ID’d as I can. Solved one uni, now we have two classes from two other unis. I had to stop for a bit before going back and finishing, got tired of looking of the same oak tree in front of the building 30 times.
At some point i’ll get back to eastern na stereums…
I decided wildflower season is my least fav, the more I think I figure out, the more I don’t know 'cause of course there’s some oddball rare one that can pop up… ha
For those who still have identification energy and like arthropods, perhaps you could tell me how to take better pictures of these observation subjects to facilitate identification. (Or let me know which ones can’t be IDed from a photo?):
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/150108001 Spider
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/149423528 Springtail
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/145762043 Cranefly
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/141623311 Mosquito
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/136873783 Harvestman
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/136873583 Seed bug
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/135616389 Flesh fly
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/135171311 Bottle fly
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/135169104 Furrow bee
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/132994628 yellow faced bumblebee
Your bees should get picked up the bee taxon specialists.
That furrow bee link goes to a fly?
I am very definitely not a specialist in any of those species, but I was curious, so… Anyway, I looked at your first observation, the one of the long-legged sac spider, genus Cheiracanthium. In the field guide Spiders of North America, there are two Cheiracanthium species listed. (I don’t know how many more, if any, are possible in that location.) Of C. inclusum, the field guide says, “This species is difficult to distinguish from the introduced Cheiracanthium mildei without looking at genitalia” (p. 436). So, getting to genus is probably as good as you’re going to get with those spiders, short of taking up microscopic photography.
And I wouldn’t be surprised at all if several of your other observations will have the same fate. But I think one thing you can do is to mention (tag) identifiers who have IDed many observations of your specific taxa in your specific area. I did that for your bottle fly observation as an example. Good luck!
Sarcophagidae can’t be ided from pictures alone, even genus is most of the time a reach.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/135171311 not sure how many species of the genus is found in NA, here you need better pictures of different parts of the fly and a list of species are ided from males only.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/141623311 need clearer picture, you need to see separate hairs on different parts of mosquito body
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/136873783 same as the previous one, need lateral picture, picture of full legs, and all clearer, unless it’s a unique-looking species
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/145762043 same and better views, you need top, lateral, ventral, genitals in 3 projections, head and antennae
Your springtail is probably good as it can get.
Getting beyond family andor genus without additional work or previous knowledge (example: in cave, and knowing which cave, and what species found in said cave from prior work) is pretty difficult.
Thanks! Sorry about the bad link.
I will have to get that field guide! I like spiders. Thanks so much for this information and your advice!
Thanks so much for all this information!
To all of you, I felt a little self-absorbed bringing my observations to the identifriday forum topic, but I have learned so much more from these kind responses than I would by waiting around for someone to discover them. Thanks again.
Thanks for this info! (It came in on a package from the “cave” of my mailbox! LOL!)