The organizer has had to go on hiatus from iNaturalist, so if the program were to repeat, it would need different leadership.
2 Likes
This made me laugh, but I donāt think I will be Rick Rolling anyone anytime soon! haha. Thanks for the advice :)
1 Like
Thank you ! My current interests are moths & birds so I will likely follow you. Thanks for your input.
Yes this is good advice, thank you. I will have to check out the local / state based guides. I am a travel nurse, so I travel various places throughout the USA. I change locations every 3 months or so, my environment changes which has been really fun from the naturalist point of view! I get to see alot of new taxa! Thank you for your input, I appreciate it :)
3 Likes
Well I guess I shall be busy for a while then! haha 
I can definitely add annotations as I go, good idea.
1 Like
If you can say which region you want to focus on, itās be easier for potential mentors.) Also, it depends on which level you want to learn things and id, as you id insects from unknown, I can help with getting them further to lower groups.
1 Like
thank you ! Good ideas, I appreciate your input.
1 Like
@cthawley, thanks for your input ! Its encouraging to hear that ID the unknowns is helpful & appreciated in the community. I have learned to make the most accurate guess I can, often I feel I am pretty close within a broader group ( ie snout & bark bugs, or long horn beetles ) instead of making an exact guess. I usually will leave that part up to the experts who know & love their particular taxa. My current interests are moths & birds so I tend to label these unknowns more so I can see the correct identification when it comes to fruition. I do withdrawal, we cant always be right ! Thanks again :)
3 Likes
Thatās a good method, very strategic, thanks for the advice! Its good to learn the āin and outsā of one particular species. I never realized how many ālook-alikesā we have in the natural world. For example, I was excited because I was studying the Pink Stripe Oak Worm Moth, and I thought I finally got it down! YAY! but low & behold there is also the Orange Tipped Oak Worm Moth & the Spiny Oakworm Moth that honestly look identical to me except a few subtle changesā¦ So that was a learning curve! Thanks for your input!
3 Likes
Birds will be easy. I go thru āmyā Unknowns ā¦ Aves ā¦ then sit back and follow notifications, until I unfollow that obs.
Also ā¦ Lepidoptera, and annotate as larva if needed.
Both help to move a chunk of Unknowns on - and we learn from notifications if we are interested in that taxon.
1 Like
The bird people are mad they will get any dark streak in the sky to species and then 14 people will confirm it
7 Likes
I read that you like moths (and birds), and are in NA. Three great resources are: Moth Photographers Group (MPG); Bugguide; and Pacific Northwest Moths (PNW Moths).
I ID moths by using MPG (plate series, filtered for area), and find variation with Bugguide. PNW Moths has a restricted range, but each species page has an in depth description. Iām old school, and like written descriptions!
4 Likes
just to add a few points about Unknowns - I like to peck away at Unknowns. Iām not sure if anyone has provided a link for honing in on Unknowns but I just like to hit āExploreā - then set my state as the location - then click the question mark filter and often set either a range of dates, or pick a specific date, or a specific month.
So, tips Iāve picked up:
Some people like to hold off on their own identifications. I often check to see who the observer is. If they have less than 25 observations, theyāre new and I will add an ID. For the most part, I go broad. Like āPlants, Insects, Dicots, Spidersā¦ā broad. That way, I lessen the chance that I donāt miss a notification that indicates Iām off on a finer ID.
If an Unknown observation is for a more prolific observer, I consider that itās Unknown because theyāre meaning to get to some research. In those cases, some might not mind you jumping in. Some mind a little more. I just feel it out or check with people.
Many new observers will see your added ID and hit āAgreeā even when Iām pretty sure they donāt know themselves. Theyāre just being āagreeableā. Even if Iām 95% sure on a species level ID, I donāt want someone to hit āAgreeā just to be agreeable and have it go RG. And since there arenāt a lot of species that Iām 100% sure on (without checking research notes), I just avoid the situation.
You have to be patient to work on Unknowns. Youāll get blurry photos, photos with lots of different types of plants in the photo, uploads of multiple species in one observation, photos of kids hanging from trees, photos of dumpsters, photos of plants in a plant store or in a lobby of a building. I think we all have our way of dealing (or ignoring) different types of these observations. There is a list of sample comments for different issues. https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/responses
I sometimes think about those folks who are uber eager to slap the 8th, 9th, and 10th agreeing ID my Northern Cardinal observation. If they spent 1/5 of the time they spend agreeing on Northern Cardinal (and the like) just whacking away at Unknown, weād get a lot of highly productive identifications started and iNat would seem a lot more attractive to new people who maybe just wanted to know what that garden plant was but might grow to realize the site is much more powerful than that. And itās really gratifying to see that person get their observation identified instead of languishing at Unknown - sometimes that happens in less than 24 hours.
Added bonus - Iām getting better recognizing broad categories of life - ants vs bees - sunflowers vs mustard - etc. I think that will only improve. And Iām running across the most fascinating stuff that will often send me off on my own online research just to find some possible answer.
6 Likes
Great response, that is a helpful sample for common responses that phrases errors nicely. I really do like going through the unknown section because it helps me become more generalized in what common IDs I know. For example, if a particular bug or plant pops up multiple times, I am likely to learn it without really trying because of its frequency. I am happy to āwhack awayā at the unknowns , kind of like the scavengers play their own role in the animal kingdom cleaning up after others, I am happy to play my role in the grand scheme of things. Thanks for your input.
3 Likes
Peterson Field Guides. Those for birds ā really, for most vertebrates ā are comprehensive. Those for plants, not so much, but I can usually get it to a related look-alike and then someone with a deeper knowledge takes it from there; I ask them how they tell it apart from the one in my field guide.
2 Likes
Another ānewbieā here. I feel like this might be a stupid question (maybe a couple of them).
I like this idea as a way to learn. If I identify something really broadly like this, will I be notified when someone else has a more specific ID? (So as to learn.)
Also, where do I find a list of āunknownsā? I click āIdentifyā and I have to page through many that already have more specific IDs before I come to one that says āunknownā.
Thanks.
Yes, you will be notified of IDs following on your broader ID. To get a list of unknowns, check out the filters in Identify. You should see a symbol with a dashed outline and a question mark. If you click on that and update the search, you will only see the unknowns. You can use other filters as well, such as only looking at particular place (under More Filters) or certain months of the year etc. That can help to narrow the pool to something more manageable.
5 Likes
Definitely follow your Notifications from Unknowns. Fascinating stories and discussions unfold. Yesterday I found a new to me beetle. With yellow zigzags on black. In Namibia.
Only 19 observations so far, and we need 100 to make it show up as a computer vision option. My IDs were simply for Coleoptera ā¦
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/528708-Hycleus-zigzagus
You can tweak and build your Unknowns and bookmark the URL, I have a few and I bounce between the autopilot versus the daunting.
2 Likes
I started by identifying easy species that I had observed and other people had brought my oberservations to research level. There are lots of purple crown vetch and chicory all over the world that need ids, and on the rare occasions when there was a similar species I did not know about, I learned from the other identifiers and from the suggestions iNaturalist offered. So you can also start with a simple species and expand from there. I also learned to use Kew Gardens online to find out the ranges of flowering plant species so I did not go beyond the range unless I had strong reasons (and usually a helpful fellow identifier to confirm).
Even research level ids can be fixed by other identifiers if you make a mistake, so go ahead the way you have been.
2 Likes
There is an option in the settings to get emails of various types of notifications. That way you can see what happens to an observation. And you can even follow observations that you donāt identify in order to get an email when someone else does.
1 Like