Thanks! Should I message that user and let them know their pictures changed or would that be rude?
If you leave a kind comment on the observation - observer and identifiers should pick it up in their notifications. If they are still active on iNat.
Similar to the multiple species obs - ‘thanks I have sorted it out now … you can ID for me please’
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I would just like to announce that there are now less than 10,000 Unknowns in the La Paz CNC.
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540 for the Western Cape, but I seem to be the last one chewing on those. I will get there.
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I swear, every time I think I’ve figured out the relevant look likes for a fungus, I find more. I was trying to go through and clean up Tylopilus alboater and I’ve been running in to a bunch of misentifieid Tylopilus griseocarneus. The difference being the former has white pores and no reticulation, and the latter has gray to black pores with lots of stem reticulation.
Also I’m begging people, take pictures of undersides of caps ;______;
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Which reminds me: I don’t think I know enough to help with the bolete you explained earlier - sorry about that! I think I can ID a bolete as a bolete, with decent photos, but beyond that, I know I don’t know enough.
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No worries XD
Someone will get to it… eventually. LOL
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Need some advice. I photographed a bumblebee, which I identified as a bee and someone else kindly identified as a bumblebee, and two other have identified as subgenus pyrobombus. My photos are not that great, so I don’t think it is going to be IDed to the species level. Should I just go ahead and check that box that says that the ID is as good as it will get?
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I would hold off on declaring it as good as it can be for a while yet, maybe till winter. I suspect many of the bee experts are out in the field right now and aren’t seeing as many observations as they’d like to.
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Great photos! Since we’re not supposed to discuss individual photos on the Forum, I’ve left a comment on your observation.
Note: I’m not a bee expert! I’m a botanist who photos bees because they’re there on the plants.
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I’ll answer here because I think this is an issue that is potentially relevant for many observations where, from the perspective of an observer, it is difficult to assess what it means when you get several IDs at a level above species.
You can always ask the IDers – with the exception of a few experts who can’t keep up with the flood of notifications and prefer to be contacted in other ways, I find that most people are happy to comment on their IDs if asked.
I only ID bees in Europe, and I’m not yet skilled enough to go past tribe/genus/subgenus in a lot of cases, but generally I do have a sense of whether the observations can theoretically be refined further – i.e., which ones can’t be ID’d further because very specific features need to be visible to distinguish the species; which ones can likely be ID’d to species by someone more knowledgeable than I; and which ones might be IDable but there are not currently many IDers with the required skills working on that particular group.
I imagine many other active IDers could provide a similar assessment.
(Edit: If what you want to know is whether you should click “ID cannot be improved,” I would phrase any such query to IDers as something like “Am I correct in thinking that it is not possible to determine the species here?” I occasionally get observers who respond to an ID by asking whether I can suggest something more specific. I imagine some of them simply want to know whether a more specific ID is possible in general, but the formulation always leaves me shaking my head a bit – if I could have suggested a more specific ID I would have done so in the first place.)
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Thank you so much! I love how consistently helpful everyone on the forum is!
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Ah. You’ve hit one of my pet peeves. Many experts who will happily tell you the photos can’t be identified to species WILL NOT hit the ‘as good as it can be’ button. In your particular example, I assess that you are correct. Subgenus is as close as you are going to get as individual hairs are not distinguishable.
Please don’t think of not getting a genus level ID as a defeat. Many species can’t be ID’ed by photos alone.
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I’d have no problem ticking that box myself if there’s expert advice right on an obs page. In Genus cases it could become RG right then.
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We need more like you.
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Here’s a thought I’d like your input on: I make lots of IDs, but most of them are either very easy species (Ghost Pipes or Chicory in the northeastern US, for example) or moving Unknowns to very general levels (to Birds or Lepidoptera, for example).
Now, all of that needs to be done, but I don’t spend the time to sort out and ID the next level of difficulty in observations - not trying to ID grasses waving in a field at a distance, but, say, sorting out hickory observations with suitable photos of the necessary characters. Should I be working to expand the set of species I often ID? Or should I leave those observations to the true botanists, lepidopterists, etc.?
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My long term advice for any citizen science volunteering: If it feels too much like an obligation or job, don’t go in that direction. Do or develop toward the personally rewarding things (as defined by you). Develop the skills you’ll enjoy having. We’re here for the “happiest day” after all. ;)
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I agree with @lotteryd ! Do what makes you happy. The work you’re doing is valuable! If you want to look into certain species groups, do. If not, don’t. Thanks for your work.
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iNat identifying is addictive. When you are ready to stretch your wings - that will be when you follow that obs to see what on earth that is?!
I am a planty person, which stretches to the bugs I capture ‘by mistake’, and the lizards, and birds. And fungi and lichen and ??? Unknowns take me into the far reaches of fascinating - what is that - discussions among taxon specialists. To the - keep that at genus for now, I am rewriting the taxonomy.
Getting a U3A biology education from I <3 iNat
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Tbh i occasionally like having a few species in my pocket that i can just go through and hit ‘agree’ on when I’m in a particular mood. Sometimes, you dont want to have to think
Looking at you, Liriodendron tulipifera
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