Since it’s possible for most people to do at least a very high level ID on most observations in the world, I feel like identifying Unknowns in places you haven’t been to or don’t visit often is in some ways a bit like traveling to those locations. you get a little peek at what lives there (and who, too).
i’ve been surprised that i’m often able to identify plants halfway around the world quite effectively because they are invasive (or cultivated) either here or there.
i’ve been surprised at how different the species in relatively nearby places can be if you just change the amount of water or the altitude, and i’m surprised at how similar the species in faraway places can be if they otherwise have relatively similar environmental factors.
…wait, what?
I have learned (in keeping with the theme) that if I immediately withdraw my ID, the placeholder returns (before someone else comes along and IDs)
This is why all the photos are grainy: it takes good (heavy) gear to take a quality photo, so because of its speed, only folks who have light gear can keep up the chase and capture any observations whatsoever.
I still vividly remember my first “unknown” identification session. I had just discovered all the filters for the Identify window and how to limit to a location and unknowns only, and got really excited and thought to myself: “Well, I should be able to do iNat a service and clear all the unknowns for my state and give them at least a kingdom ID!”
Several reality checks followed. First, I quickly realized that was too many pages and narrowed it to county level… Second, I then realized there were a lot that were truly unidentifiable (e.g. too dark, too blurry, mysterious stuff that I wasn’t sure which kingdom it even belongs to if it was life at all), or just not what iNat was for (e.g. rocks and clouds). Not to mention all the observations with multiple photos of different things that look easy to ID at first until you discover the additional pictures.
I got very discouraged until I discovered I could get those to disappear from my personal Needs ID queue by checking them “reviewed.” I know this doesn’t remove them from the Needs ID pool for anyone except for me, but at that point I switched from the “doing IDs as a service to clear the pool” idea (realizing this would be an impossible goal) to the “doing IDs for personal fun and education” idea. I no longer stress about things that I would find frustrating to deal with - I just mark “reviewed” and move on.
Was reminded of another thing I learned from IDing unknowns:
When specializing in IDing a specific branch, like plants, I miss the insect, frog, bug, etc. that the observer clearly has in focus/in the middle. Obviously, they really want to know what plant it is and the animal is blocking the view…
I’m not sure what to call this, maybe plant-colored glasses, from the expression rose-colored glasses. I’m not sure if this happens mostly with strictly plant identifiers or not since plants are often just backgrounds for animal observations.
I was surprised that 80% or more of unknowns in my area are plants.
I was surprised to discover that I have very little interest in IDing things that don’t have legs or leaves, especially blobby or slimy things that could be molds or fungi or jellyfish or seaweed, etc.
Back to - what did I learn
Fascinated by this mud wasp, who builds pebbles into her nest.
Surely she can’t fly with them? She must drag them across the ground, as our spider wasps do with their paralysed rain spider.