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.
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.”)
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.
@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.
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?):
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!
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.
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.