Although gymnosperms don’t flower and don’t technically fruit, there is still a lot of value in having a way to annotate when they produce their pollen structures and seeds which is often quite seasonal like in gymnosperms.
Perhaps we can call it cone emergence or pollen release instead of “flowering”? And setting seed or just seeding instead of “fruiting”
The pollen info would be really helpful for a lot of reasons - everything from allergies to climate change.
You should be able to select multiple annotations for Life Stage and Sex in the same way that you are able to select multiple annotations for Evidence of Presence and for precisely the same reason, i.e., one observation can contain multiple life stages and/or multiple sexes of the same species.
Because you can have, for instance, an observation of a doe with her fawn or an observation of a mated pair of mallards, it makes sense that you should be able to annotate an observation as both adult and juvenile or male and female. That way, someone seeking observations of, for instance, a juvenile deer will also find them in observations that include adults, or male mallards in observations that include female mallards. As it stands now, if an observation contains both male and female of a species or both adult and juvenile, I’ll simply not annotate at all, rather than partially/arbitrarily annotate one way or the other.
And frankly, it seems needless and nonsensical to duplicate an observation just to annotate it differently.
I am not asking for new exotic annotation options here, but rather a lucid rethinking of a basic mechanic on existing options for reasons that seem dead obvious (and internally consistent).
If the purpose of annotating an observation is to help people find what they are looking for, then being able to find a fawn, whether it’s with a doe or not, makes sense. And conversely, being effectively forced to decide whether an observation is going to be searchable for one subject over another doesn’t really make sense.
Honestly this seems like a no-brainer to me
The difference is that an individual plant can have, for example, buds, flowers and fruit, but an individual lepidopteran cannot be both adult and egg. The basis of an iNat observation is an interaction with one individual at a particular place and time; it isn’t a no-brainer to abolish that just because you have particular preferences. If you feel people will want to find observations of fawns (because fawns are less common), then annotate for the fawn. If you see a pair mating, use an observation field to mark that. If you don’t want to annotate, feel free to leave it for someone else.
No one is suggesting that a lepidopteran can be both egg and adult, but there could easily be an observation of a butterfly laying eggs. And I see no good reason why that observation should not, as a result, be annotated adult and egg.
And yes, I have heard the oft-repeated mantra about an observation being an interaction with one individual at a particular place and time. Except that no matter how dogmatically it is recited, it is demonstrably shown to be dubious thousands of times a day.
https://inaturalist.ca/observations/334854579
This is an observation from a couple of weeks ago of ten buffleheads, five males and five females. I feel no compulsion to indicate “second female from the left” nor is there any expectation that I do so. Conversely, if I were to make nine duplicates of the same observation, noting each individual or perhaps (if I were feeling ambitious) using some sort of graphics app to circle individual ducks, there would be lots of folks who would be annoyed and ask me to refrain. Why? Because, despite what people feel so compelled to assert, the point of an observation like this is to document that at Jan 15, 2026 · 8:09 AM PST, at this particular location, I observed this species.
To expand upon the ridiculous example above, I am assuming that I would assiduously annotate five of my duplicates as male and five as female. It is an admittedly nonsensical example to make a point, I would argue, however, that it is only a matter of degree that makes duplicating the observation once and annotating the original observation male and the duplicate female as any less ridiculous.
An annotation of male on this observation would indicate nothing more or less than: “This observation contains a male bufflehead,” which of course, it does. The same would hold true of an annotation of female—everyone understands this, and no one would be hung up on the question of which female bufflehead I am referring to.
And so, that being said, there is absolutely nothing contradictory or in the slightest bit confusing to annotate this observation with both male and female. Except you can’t.
—
Now, in cases like this, [below] the need for a duplicate record make perfect sense. Why? Because there is a need to show different species in separate observations, and that is because a species is, in fact, the practical building block of an observation.
An operational definition isn’t a “mantra”, no matter how little you like it, nor does it fall into the class of statement that can be proven or disproven.
The approach taken by iNat is internally consistent. Anyone interested in further detail (e.g. “mixed-sex group”) can generate an observation field. I‘ve done that for ripe fruit, variant flower colour, and average temperature of the last month at a nearby weather station. I appreciate the flexibility and don’t need to dictate how this should be done within the core software.
No one is suggesting that a lepidopteran can be both egg and adult, but there could easily be an observation of a butterfly laying eggs. And I see no good reason why that observation should not, as a result, be annotated adult and egg.
And yes, I have heard the oft-repeated mantra about an observation being an interaction with one individual at a particular place and time. Except that no matter how dogmatically it is recited, it is demonstrably shown to be dubious thousands of times a day.
https://inaturalist.ca/observations/334854579
This is an observation from a couple of weeks ago of ten buffleheads, five males and five females. I feel no compulsion to indicate “second female from the left” nor is there any expectation that I do so. Conversely, if I were to make nine duplicates of the same observation, noting each individual or perhaps (if I were feeling ambitious) using some sort of graphics app to circle individual ducks, there would be lots of folks who would be annoyed and ask me to refrain. Why? Because, despite what people feel so compelled to assert, the point of an observation like this is to document that at Jan 15, 2026 · 8:09 AM PST, at this particular location, I observed this species.
To expand upon the ridiculous example above, I am assuming that I would assiduously annotate five of my duplicates as male and five as female. It is an admittedly nonsensical example to make a point, I would argue, however, that it is only a matter of degree that makes duplicating the observation once and annotating the original observation male and the duplicate female as any less ridiculous.
An annotation of male on this observation would indicate nothing more or less than: “This observation contains a male bufflehead,” which of course, it does. The same would hold true of an annotation of female—everyone understands this, and no one would be hung up on the question of which female bufflehead I am referring to.
And so, that being said, there is absolutely nothing contradictory or in the slightest bit confusing to annotate this observation with both male and female. Except you can’t.
—
Now, in cases like this, [below] the need for a duplicate record makes perfect sense. Why? Because there is a need to show different species in separate observations, and that is because a species, is in fact, the practical building block of an observation.
https://inaturalist.ca/observations/198820572
https://inaturalist.ca/observations/198820573
Which is why—and I wish I had an example at hand, but I don’t—if I had an observation that showed three gulls, one adult and two juveniles, with the adult gull pecking apart a crab, it ought to be possible to fully annotate the gulls with one duplicate observation for the crab.
I am not trying to “disprove’ the operational defintition, merely trying to suggest that it doesn’t hold up to much scrutiny in terms of a lot of the observations on the site especially when compared to the only slightly broader (and to my mind more intuitive) defintion that would suggest an observation is an interaction, on a specific date and time and at a precise location, with a single species.
The individual definition works fine with many of observations, of course, but the species definition applies to all observations and actually reflects the key datapoint of any observation, which is species.
(And on top of which, it would allow for more complete annotation without the otherwise needless duplication of records)
What’s the opinion about bulbils? (as found on e.g. Allium flower heads)
Functionally they are akin to ‘fruits’ (or better, seeds - able to grow into full-fledged individuals)…
I think it would be useful to have an “established” annotation to go with the “not established” annotation.
if a curator / specialist that can give the “research grade observation” can come, he may dismiss the user choice about the animal being a larvae instead of an adult.
I would like to reiterate this and slightly extend that idea by highlighting the need for a more general “Sign” annotation, in the mobile app.
While some types of sign are already covered (tracks, scat, etc.), there is currently no way to annotate other common forms of indirect evidence, such as:
Feeding marks (e.g. cones opened by crossbills Loxia)
Chewed plant material (e.g. rodent gnawing)
Pecking marks or bark stripping
These are frequent, identifiable from images, and widely used in field ecology, but currently rely on Observation Fields (not possible in the app and not standardized).
A broader “Sign” option (or expansion of “Animal Signs”) would help standardize these observations and make them more usable within annotations.
Thanks a lot!
searching the forum is difficult so i apologize if this question has come up before, but i’m curious about whether or not something would be considered a construction:
lacewing larva debris packets.
i have been marking them as constructions (and also marking organism even if only a single leg is visible under the clump), because i think the packet is ‘something created by an animal, made from other material.’
but is it? the other material the larva collects is fastened to the animal itself via long ‘hairs.’ if you were to pull the debris off it wouldn’t remove as one packet, but as various bits of debris.
am i right to add a ‘construction’ annotation to these observations? i figure i should ask before continuing to do so.
and if this is a construction, would other animals that cover themselves in debris also fit the description? a masked hunter nymph, for example. in their case it isn’t a debris packet or a clump, it’s more like… a crust. intuitively i wouldn’t mark that as a construction, but that makes me wonder about the lacewings…
Calling it a construction makes sense to me.
If you look at the documentation for Annotations, it lists caddisfly larva casing as a use case for the Construction annotation. But these are found separately from larvae. If the object can’t exist as such apart from the organism (which it seems is the case), I might not annotate it as Construction. For instance, do all larval debris packets contain a larva? If so, I would just annotate as larva myself.
thanks for the link! that one cleared up my question about antlion pits as examples of constructions (yes, clearly! they are excavations), but not the lacewing debris packets.
the packet (i tend to say ‘clump’ but i am a fan of the Katamari video games…) is not something that would exist independently of the animal. if you attempt to remove the clump from a larva, you will be removing individual debris bits rather than the whole packet of bits.
consulting the literature doesn’t shed much light relevant to iNat, referring to the varying degree of the packet’s cohesiveness:
“Other aspects of the larval packet also vary among species, for example, the amount (weight) of the material carried, the size of the packet relative to the body, the mode of attachment, and the degree of the packet’s cohesiveness. […] Typical coverings include a small number of scattered pieces of material loosely held by hooked setae on the dorsum, light layers of material intertwined with long setae, loosely to tightly constructed cloaks that partially or completely cover the larval body, and very dense shields that are tightly attached and intertwined with silken strands and that extend well beyond the outline of the larval body.” - C.A. Tauber, 2014
a ‘dense shield’ or a ‘tightly constructed cloak’ sounds like a construction, whereas ‘scattered bits of material attached to setae’ does not. that said, even the ‘dense shield’ is attached to the larva by the same means: the larva grabs a piece of material, bends its head back, and affixes the material onto long specialized setae on its back.
i think i’ll stop adding the ‘Construction’ annotation for these. i only do it in addition to Organism (i won’t provide/confirm an ID on a debris packet observation unless some of the animal is visible underneath)
in some species the debris packet is incorporated into the cocoon, so they become a construction at some point!
Yes, I would definitely annotate that last pic as “Construction”
I’ve been trying to clean up Unknowns & Kingdom for my region – I feel that adding evidence of presence: microscopy, while a bit of a stretch on the definition of the annotation, would be a huge benefit to fungi, bacteria, cyanobacteria, slime molds and many other similar organisms. and while we’re at it: EOP - fruiting body, mycelia, etc.
What is the correct way to annotate a hermaphrodite individual of an androdioecious tree species, like rambutan (i.e. each plant produces either male flowers or bisexual flowers)?
I think that, given our options under the “Sex” annotation, the best we can do is annotate the males as male and don’t annotate the others. Plus comment in the notes. Plant gender possibilities far exceed our usual categories.
