It is nice that iNaturalist automatically selects taxon photos sometimes. However, in the case of Mecaphesa aikoae, which has no photographs confirmed via dissection, I feel that there should not be a taxon photo. I have been identifying this species based on the written description in Schick 1965, which indicates this is one of the few Mecaphesa species that could be reliably identified by habitus photos. However, Mecaphesa are capable of changing color and pattern and some, such as Mecaphesa dubia, occur in an overlapping area and could conceivably have a similar color pattern.
When I noticed that iNaturalist had added a taxon photo, I removed it, only for another taxon photo to be added. Is there a way to prevent this from happening in a perpetual loop, or are we stuck with iNaturalist adding a taxon photo for a taxon that has never been positively IDed from photos before?
I unchecked âauto photosâ, not sure if that will stop it or not because the text about how âauto photosâ works references flickr photos specifically.
correct. Once a species gets its first RG record, the first photo from that record will automatically be made the thumbnail image after ~24 hours. So there are plenty of species with only Needs ID records that have no thumbnail yet if it hasnât been manually set by someone
I respect your knowledge.
But iNat is focused on people engaging with nature - we, non-scientists and also iNatâs CV need photos of whole and living organisms. iNat uses the âphotos ofâ from various observers with various cameras.
Your sp is one for - should be RG at genus - unless dissection photos are included.
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There is a single obs at RG - tentative - but, with 3 IDs - should that be pushed back, with a comment? But not by me! Anyone who comes to - add a taxon picture - will be offered THAT obs to choose from.
I prefer to replace taxon pictures that came from Flickr with a RG obs from iNat. (That was recently changed so the default is RG, previously it was any obs)
Thanks. Iâm aware of making observations RG at genus, but I feel like that is not actually helpful in this scenario. There are almost 25,000 observations of Mecaphesa at genus level, and while some of them are not identifiable, I believe many of them are identifiable once the work has been done to examine genitalia and connect patterns to species.
In this scenario, I believe the correct approach is to have the community ID level be at species and at âneeds ID.â This will allow people to find observations of spiders that match the written description of Mecaphesa aikoae using the search function. Otherwise, these unique observations will be undiscoverable in the field of 25,000 and growing genus-level Mecaphesa observations.
I think due to the fact that Mecaphesa species are chronically understudied, it is not advisable to make them RG at genus unless they are a solid white or yellow color form, as dozens of species can turn into those color forms. I have run across observations of Mecaphesa that were marked âgood as can beâ that I was able to improve based on written descriptions from the literature or from old unpublished type drawings that I have access to. So in my opinion most Mecaphesa observations should not be pushed to RG prematurely.
Thanks, this does indeed appear to be the answer. I just need to make sure people donât make these RG until we have habitus photos of confirmed specimens to compare.
A few did have observations. If none are at research grade I donât think iNat populates the field with photos, they have to be added manually in that case.
