Marine observations only

[d_gonzalez]

Is there a way to get into the Identify section and just see marine species? Available categories do not cover all marine taxa and choosing locations like coasts will obviously return terrestrial species, too.

[giannamaria]

I think the quickest way to do this would be to join a project that collects only marine observations and ID those. @pisum might have a better way to do this though?

[upupa-epops]

This project was created for that purpose: Worldwide Marine Life needs ID

Here’s the Identify filter for the project: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?project_id=worldwide-marine-life-needs-id

Derived from this thread:

@bobmcd

Spent some time applying the inclusions and exclusions in the Wiki above to a RG collection project. Worldwide Marine Life. Duplicated the rules but as a RG and Needs ID project for a local place Salish Sea Marine Life.

The significance of limiting the worldwide project to RG is so that land based crabs, gastropods etc don’t show up because they have only been identified to family etc.

[jasonhernandez74]

@d_gonzalez

Is there a way to get into the Identify section and just see marine species?

If I was doing this within the constraints of the website’s UI, I would go to Explore, choose map view, manually select a boundary that encompasses only ocean, then filter for “Identify.”

[AdamWargon]

I guess the replies above are actually helpful, unlike my general comment, which is that this thread reminded me of something that Jason has pointed out in the past, which is that humans have ideas about nature that don’t align with taxonomy. Like “tree”. Or “marine life”. Which are obvious to most humans, but have little to no meaning in biological taxonomy.

[adrien_ferrand]

As a diver, I ended up bulk editing all my marine observations with a “Underwater” tag.

I first bulk edited them and added an observation field for those but I don’t recommend it since you can’t explore on the phone app (iPhone at least) for the observation fields (but you can for tags).

After doing all this, I realised that joining a project was an easy way to “automate” the process and in the search, just add the project in the search filters (works on the app as well). I joined the “Sealife Collection” I feel it’s a win-win for the project and for me.

[eyekosaeder]

In my opinion, iNat should add places for the various oceans and seas. Currently I could find a place for “Pacific ocean” but that apparently is only a point, or something? (In any case, it doesn’t include observations)

I don’t think this is something users can add though, since there is a size limit for user-created places…?

[d_gonzalez]

Thanks, everyone! Joining and filtering for projects are great ideas.
I understand “marine life” has no taxonomic value as we’d be talking about a taxon’s distribution and not a classification by itself. However, when identifying common molluscs in a certain place, I would like to see taxa with a mainly marine distribution. That’s what the Worldwide Marine Life needs ID project seems to be doing, which is great.

[upupa-epops]

There’s a feature request for that here: Implement Standard Marine Places for the world’s oceans

I also found this thread while searching for that: Underwater creatures category

[eyekosaeder]

@upupa-epops

There’s a feature request for that here

Thanks! +1 Vote :)