https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/28/us/hoodwinker-sunfish-north-america-trnd/index.html

very neat. though it kind of weirds me out that the actual person who first found it was called ‘an intern’ and totally dismissed. Kind of an odd choice by CNN? Unless they just asked not to be named. But probably just another intern doing a bunch of work with no credit.

From what I can work out the intern is also an iNat user and put up her own observation of it. https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/20504085 Unfortunately she never responded to the request for more info so got left behind.

ah, well if she was an absentee user, i guess that’s a bit different. It was worded like so many science things where ‘well, this person made the discovery but because she isn’t part of whatever in group she is ignored and someone else gets named’. But sounds like just how the situation played out. …

Made it to the front page of BBC.com too, although with less focus on the iNat angle. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47424072

Hmm, that’s annoying. Facebook had nothing to do with it and iNat was central to the whole thing.

This actually made me realise how “research grade” observations may not actually be research grade at all. There could be a hidden species complex, or a species that have been neglected in the list of possibilities because that organism has been found outside of their expected range.

iNat on front page of CNN.com

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iNat on front page of CNN.com

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