Northern water dragon (Tropicagama temporalis) vs Gilbert’s dragon (Lophognathus gilberti).
I’m guilty of misidentifying these myself but sat down with some field guides lately to try to get the differences into my head because they can look very alike. Ended up going through my IDs for both and changing quite a few. I think many were misidentified because the CV would only suggest Tropicagama and not mention Gilberts. Hopefully that is changing now…
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LOTS of plants here that are quite often confused for one another. I live in a region of high plant diversity so there will be plants that look very similar but are distinct species, sometimes within a narrow distance between each other’s distribution (e.g. neighbouring mountain ranges).
It does not help that some species have been transplanted/moved by humans, and hybrids also happen.
An example would be bearded proteas.
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Lots. The ones I’m most familar with are probably Myrmica ants, especially M. rubra and M. ruginodes.
But also, almost every male fly (and a decent chunk of female ones) in the subfamily Platypezinae gets identified as Lindneromyia sp. which is usually wrong.
It’s probably CV‘s fault because they are indeed very similar, but if the dm-m cross-vein is closer to the wing margin than its own length, it’s certainly not Lindneromyia. (In European species at least)
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Try sponges. ;)
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Mecaphesa species (and other color-changing members of the tribe Misumenini). Mecaphesa in particular can only be confidently identified by dissection (at least until a lot more work is done), and many Mecaphesa species can change color and pattern to look almost exactly like one another. They can also hybridize.
In my part of Georgia, we have American and Fish Crows, which can only be reliably distinguished by their calls.
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In Guizhou, China, for birds the problem species are: Scaly and White’s Thrushes, Indian and Swinhoe’s White-eyes, Amur and Siberian Stonechats. All visually challenging to ID with uncertain expected ranges for some or all of the year.
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Yes! Same here in Niagara, Canada along Lake Ontario. This April I must have been alert just enough to switch to video mode and catch the call of a pair that I spotted.
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Empidonax flycatchers.
Some cicadas: Neotibicen linnei and female Neotibicen robersonianus.
The larval stages of Polyphemus moths and Luna moths.
Green frogs and American Bullfrogs.
With or without those ridges along the back seems pretty distinct to me. But I suppose the thread was referring to “most likely to be confused” by people who haven’t learned what to look for.
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The five species of Kiwi.
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Coprosmas
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=6803&subview=map&taxon_id=70254&view=species
I feel I am passable with the local large leaf ones. But the smaller leaf ones…yeah.
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Pisaura spiders for sure, and other small insects that require genitalia analysis or mycroscope images to identify like this one: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/206945454
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I think our tree ferns are more confusable than our Coprosmas. I think our large leaves Coprosmas are easier to differentiate than the alpine and subalpine ones.
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