Sorry, no idea about fungi.
I will keep on doing what I did the whole week… Oxyopidae in Europe… 48 more pages to go :-)
as others have said, feel free to ping me to help overrule! I’m happy to help, at least for the taxa I’m more comfortable with.
Also please feel free to ping me if I’ve left an incorrect ID! I don’t always see an update to something I’ve IDed without a comment.
i started identifying Sugarcane Plume Grass (Saccharum giganteum) this morning since i thought they should be fairly unmistakable when in bloom, but then I realized how uncomfortable i am identifying these outside my local area, since I’m not sure what kind of lookalikes are out in other places. will have to do some research later today and then try again, if there’s time.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&quality_grade=needs_id&taxon_id=168276
Happy Friday! I think I’ll work on Mirabilis later
Still working through Alabamas backlog of non RG.
Decided to reverse sort because i got tired of the 10 same observation by 10 different students as they walk around the arboretum at a university in this state logging hundreds of observations in total.
Btw. Would arboretums be captive? Its outdoors done like a nature walk but it is arboretum. Natural stuff pops up but in general the shrubs and trees were planted on purpose for it - even tho in this spot theyre walking it is native species. I just thought of that. I havnt been marking as such before
Mark captive and move on. You can always tell which students actually try and which only want to get their required observations for a good grade.
If you wouldn’t mind, could we get some help with insect IDs at the nature preserve I volunteer for in southeast Texas? Since we started doing moth night events there has been a great influx on insect observations. It used to be mostly plants (which I try to keep up with).
Still determined to clear Western Cape (can be done = is done, for now) and Rest of Africa (that’s a definite maybe = down to 300) before the Southern Bioblitz …
Got distracted from my quest to the Oxyopidae in Europe quite a bit this week… only 8 pages down since last weekend…
but there was something weird going on in the Alopecosa-realm that took my attention (which kind of is resolved now I think) and of course the ongoing Argiope of the world… but those observations should soon become much more seldom in the northern territories where I ID those mainly
Tried to help with the lepidoptera, not familiar directly with SE texas so didn’t have much to add as I’m less confident with that area than Alabama, but got a couple per page :)
I have Alabama’s backlog down below 2500 pages and got bored. (not that it’s cleared…but cleared of what I can help with)
I also had a look on the spiders but was not able to do much (I only know certain species of the north americas and don´t know about similar species for almost all others)… was only half a page anyways
Thanks for your help @egordon88 and @NoGenAI
Helping with the bioblitz, time to learn fungi.
did 30 pages of Oxyopes… 10 left… might finish tomorrow :-)
I’d like to give a shoutout to @arboretum_amy for filling up my notifications with lots of IDs and helpful comments.
- Confirming/refining/correcting IDs I had made as first-pass guesses absolutely helps with learning: where was my hunch correct? where was a guess misplaced? where I had no idea, what can I now look up and learn more about? → indirect teaching, shows me what to learn about
- Additional info on how to distinguish plants AND whether a species is distinctive/a safe ID → direct instruction
- Just being a presence → more feeling of community, less… “loneliness?”, allows me to feel more comfortable expanding comfort zone and making mistakes (necessary for learning!) without worrying as much about errors going unchecked
it’s a very good thing! I’m very grateful having a much more knowledgeable person to guide/check/etc. I am trying to emulate pieces of that to the extent I’m able.
Hopefully things like this can make IDing more interesting, fun, or comfortable for other people as well.
sorry i dont know european species; i’ve gotten really good at some north american ones!
There’re some (quite a few) species found on both continents, but there’re so many species, it’s really hard, I for now only can id about 50 out of thousands.
We get a lot of stereums and trichaptum photos here, and i’m only familar with the new stereum work in NA; I don’t know of any work done with europe yet. If trichaptums are the same I can def help with those, and same with some trametes if those are the same. Without knowing though i’d worry about miss-IDing
Great! I was a bit unsure how many comments would be too many comments, so I’m glad you are happy with this level.
If anyone else would like me to skim their plant IDs, let me know. Of course I’m most helpful in California but I might know cultivated plants elsewhere.