I have a lot of shells in my collection, mainly sea shells, that i’ve been given as gifts or that I’ve bought over the years and I’d like to upload them onto iNat to get them identified. But I have no clue where most of them are originally from. I don’t want to put up a bunch of casual observations …

Perhaps it depends a little on just how many there are too. You might want to just select ones you think are particularly interesting, or a few that are representative of the others.

[image] mertensia: It’s a great use of iNaturalist, Well, I’m not sure that’s really so. From the iNat FAQ: An observation records an encounter with an individual organism at a particular time and location. however, a quick Google search search showed lots of sites for seashell identificat…

[image] mertensia: can help train the CV How? Without location even a mollusc person like Susan Hewitt is not ‘happy’ to ID a random shell from somewhere. A formal collection like a museum specimen with an informed species ID and location where it was collected - that can be useful to train t…

[image] shelbie0121: I can’t put a location for them iNat will automatically make them ‘casual’ as in lacking data = Missing Location. Or it is like the obs I tripped over for saltwater clams. In Ohio?

Likely the correct way is to use current day and place and then mark as captive. And I agree with @teellbee that adding a bunch of casual observations will never be a great way to use iNat, it can sometimes be useful, but not great.

[image] teellbee: A friend of mine had some success with a reddit site that identifies bones and other biofacts This would be my recommendation as well. Facebook groups or other groups to help with the ID’s rather than iNaturalist.

What about shells that I know exactly where they come from but I don’t have any dates?

You can post them without dates, with place they likely will be ided if you tag an expert.

Just as a side note, if you ever want to use the computer vision to help with ID but don’t want to post a casual observation, you can drag the photo into the batch uploader, check out the CV’s ID, and then delete without completing the observation. No harm done, and the ID you get from the CV can he…

I agree with @marina_gorbunova and @susanhewitt - iNat’s not a good place to upload photos of those shells. But definitely post photos of shells you find while beachcombing!

Is it ok to upload pictures of shells if I don't know where they're from?

General

ksanderson May 30, 2022, 7:36pm 15

This would be my recommendation as well. Facebook groups or other groups to help with the ID’s rather than iNaturalist.

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Is it ok to upload pictures of shells if I don't know where they're from?

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