Several (well, thousands of) insect species induce galls in plants. For many, this is where they reside for most of their life cycle, only emerging briefly to mate and lay eggs. Should the main photo associated with these insect taxa be: A photo of the insect itself? pro: emphasizes that the tax…

As someone who does a lot of IDing and looking-for-galls, I strongly favor making the representative photos ones that will actually help me to ID what I’m most likely to see–and it is way more likely that I will find oak galls than oak gall wasps, and more likely that I will actually be able to iden…

I think it’s going to vary a lot by taxon and gall type. re: Your example Ordinarily, I’d say that since the suggestion’s thumbnail in the dropdown list is only one pic (unless they view it or use the Identron), to use the gall…after all, if you only have 1 pic, make it the one that matches what p…

my take is that the main photo should be whatever is the most charismatic thing. for example, a lot of oak galls are really interesting and beautiful (ex. Andricus coronus), but the wasps that cause them are somewhat nondescript. so the gall should be featured in the main photo. on the other hand, s…

It is useful to sort by life stage which can be done in the picture section. It would also be useful to be able to search by host plant. Maybe this is possible but I do not know how.

I’m just some guy who’s bored during quarantine, with no scientific background whatsoever nor any hobbies or particular interests in plants/insects/whatever, so take that into consideration, but here’s my thought about it: Before a few weeks ago I had never heard of a gall. I found what was clearl…

I am afraid that “charismatic” will not help in IDing. Main photo of an organism should be a quality photo of the character by which the organism is most IDed. If the photo is charismatic, too, that is only an additional bonus. For gall-makers and miners the keys are focused on galls and mines they …

That’s an interesting point. Again, I think it’s highly dependent on taxon, and what is going to result in the fewest number of wrong selections from suggestions. To your point, if someone were to post an observation of a dog’s pawprint, and the suggestions all had various carnivoran footprints (do…

Another solution might be if someone makes an observation with a collage. Eg. This used to be the default taxon photo for Belonocnema treatae : [image] I can see why it was changed in the case of B. treatae; the galls are more likely to be encountered than the wasp, and while it looks a bit like s…

I agree with @ekmes that with galls and leafmines, it is usually most helpful for the first icon photo to show the gall or the leaf mine, and the second (or third) photo to show the adult. If the common name of the organism includes the word “gall” or “leaf mine”, then is it not a problem if the ic…

Well, if they think it’s just a very leafy goldenrod (and in a very real sense, it is!) then they’d be correct to pass over the insect ID and choose the plant ID instead. The observation is also evidence of the plant, after all. My first question to users making puzzling IDs of this and similar tax…

It looks like these helpful guidelines from @ekmes have a lot of support from the community. For anyone reading along, I have just changed the photo gallery for the example species in my original post (R. solidaginis) to show a clearer photo of the characteristic gall as the main photo, keeping in …

Main photo for plant-galling insects

General

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Main photo for plant-galling insects

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