Macaulay Library vs. iNaturalist

General
1

Both the Macaulay Library (“ML”, which uses media uploaded via eBird) and iNat are great tools… but they’re actually very different. Here’s how:

ML:

  • Uses media provided by eBird
  • You can’t upload directly on the site
  • You need an eBird account to rate media
  • Uses catalog numbers (e.g., ML1234567890)
  • No real way of organizing media of a species that is done automatically

iNat:

  • Uses media on species or taxa pages provided by Wikimedia Commons, EOL, and Flickr
  • You can upload directly on the site
  • You need an iNat account to do most things on the site
  • Doesn’t really use catalog numbers
  • No real way of organizing media of a species that is done automatically

Keep in mind that you should please try to post your own ML media to iNat, no matter what license someone else’s ML media has.

If you have anything more to discuss on ML vs. iNat, feel free to add it in the comments!

2

for unique numerical ID on iNat, i often refer to observations as Obs [# in URL] (ex. Obs 108522911). media also have their own unique numerical ID if you click on the (i) symbol of an image/audio file, ex. Photo 182726519 or Sound 1036499. moreover, if an observation has been exported in the GBIF dataset, you can link to a stable occurrence record (ex. https://www.gbif.org/occurrence/3743319716)

ML identifications are reliant on the observer & local volunteer reviewers. as such, there are misidentified images that are not easily corrected. i have been keeping a record of misIDed images that i have reported, the reasoning for the ID correction, and the outcome. many are never corrected or the corrections are rejected by the local reviewer and/or the media submitter. there are many cases where eBird users delete the image depicting another species and leave the misID on the checklist. the top result when looking for images of juvenile Gray-lined Hawk on Google Images will show a juvenile Broad-winged Hawk due to a ML misID (and it is the image included on the Birds of the World species account).

i prefer iNaturalist to ML due to the constant ability to review and correct identifications.

3

To clarify, iNaturalist observations (images or sounds) each have a unique observation number, equivalent to a catalogue number. When there are multiple images within one observation, each has a unique AWS record number. Each sound recording has a unique “File URL” on \https://static.inaturalist.org/sounds.

4

Most citizen science initiatives are different from each other in some fundamental way, and iNat is generally quite different from the rest as the primary aim is/was to encourage people’s connection with nature, with the data collection and science portions being something of an extra benefit.

This post strikes me a bit like saying, “There are cars and boats, but they’re actually very different.”

Still, nothing lost in knowing the differences; knowledge is not wasted.

5

Cars and boats are different but both can get us where we are going.

This morning I posted a dragonfly record to both iNat and Odonata Central, the latter being a database devoted to just Odonata. Maybe a redundant effort in some respects but redundancy isn’t all bad. OC allows import of records from iNat since the creators recognized a lot of good odonate records were showing up on iNat.

6

Unlike iNat, the Macaulay Library is now able to archive non-bird videos: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/upload-videos/5426/46