iNaturalist just surpassed 250 million verifiable observations:
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Viruses are very underrepresented on iNaturalist relative to their diversity in nature. After one viral observation in 2020 – the papilloma virus that causes the common wart – I did’nt observe any more for years. Last year, 2024, I decided to make it an ongoing iNatting goal to observe at least one new viral taxon per year. That year, I acheived the goal on October 13 with the Hackberry Island Chlorosis Virus – an Ampelovirus not yet described to the species level.
I have a few parameters for my plant viral observations. I have seen too many hopeful observations knocked back to “Life” because chlorosis can be caused by a simple nutrient deficiency in the absence of any pathogens. Therefore, before I observe any plant virus, I must first identify the host, then look online to see if it has known viral diseases that cause the observed symptoms.
Today I achieved the goal for this year. Several sources describe the observed symptoms, including
Buttonweed in your Pastures | Soil & Water Conservation District
Virginia Buttonweed | Home & Garden Information Center
Virginia Buttonweed | NC State Extension Publications
None of those sources ventured to name the virus, and the Clemson source even called it “an unknown virus.” Only when entering the observation field for the host and starting to type in “Diodia” did I see Diodia Vein Chlorosis Virus pop up. It is a Crinivirus, a genus with several known crop diseases.
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@jasonhernandez74 Thanks for posting this! I noticed this on some of the buttonweed in my yard and didn’t think to investigate what caused it.
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I passed 10,000 annotations earlier this week. Now to get my IDs up to a similar number…
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Went to a bioblitz this past Saturday, and I’ve crossed a couple milestones as I work through the uploads from it!
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CNC 25 by species
San Antonio 4817
Graz 4526
Cochabamba (the ‘winner’) 4524 whittled down to third and only 3% RG :~((
Can we nudge Hong Kong up to true third position 4433 by knocking another 90 off the ‘winner’. Wading thru a suspended user with almost 2K obs and all at sensational wrong IDs. Only needs 3, on every obs, to put it right. 
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Finally posted at least one observation of every bird on my life list, so now almost every animal I’ve photographed should be on iNaturalist. Brought me over 1,000 observations.
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I finally passed 1000 observations!
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