Yeah, this is how I inadvertantly became a top IDer for Reseda in the UK and a couple of other countries – by picking a genus with only a couple of local species that are generally distinguishable from photos with a bit of practice and spending a few afternoons going through the “needs ID” pile (I didn’t hog them all – there are still plenty left if anyone is in search of a project).
(Thank you for your kind words. This time of year the bee observations just keep coming in a neverending stream and it can be rather disheartening. They certainly aren’t the easiest taxon and I’m acutely aware of the limits of my own knowledge and skills, but I’m always happy to provide tips/resources if anyone wants to learn more.)
Try the photo browser. This can be found on taxonomic profile pages under “View More”. Select Grouping “Taxonomic”, Life Stage “Larva” and Filter By Place “New Zealand”. It’s not perfect, as you will have to go through multiple images of the same species within a taxonomic group (by hovering over with the mouse to get species names), but it can help narrow the search. Of course, not all caterpillar pictures posted for New Zealand will be in this photo browser because people have to flag their observations as larva. If you lived in Canada or the USA, you could have used Bugguide.net that does it better. Here is an example url: https://inaturalist.ca/taxa/121850-Erebidae/browse_photos?order_by=created_at&quality_grade=any&term_id=1&term_value_id=6&grouping=taxon_id&place_id=6803
In North America, we effectively lost a valuable resource - “Owlet Caterpillars of Eastern North America” due to the book going out of print and any available copies left over are way overpriced. Caterpillars of Eastern North America is still in print, but that is only half of what the two books together cover. So even if ID resources are out there, they are not guaranteed to last.
A small note. A book series of four called Ontario Moths is in the works to cover all the moths of Ontario. Volume 4 is available. Should be useful in Ontario and neighbouring provinces and states.
Maybe mottephobia, or the intense fear of moths, is more widespread than reported. I knew a very good naturalist who had no fear of snakes but was terrified of moths. Not a candidate to do moth IDs.
I was curious, so here’s some statistics from my home state of New Mexico. Moths lead these groups in number of verifiable and Needs ID observations, but only 1/3 flies and 1/4 arachnids are research grade in this state.
I think they mean, not that there are multiple organisms in a photo, but that they are seeing species complexes of similar-looking, but distinct and described species, all being labeled as one species on iNaturalist. I’m not really up on moth species complexes, but for example in my area there are 3 Lithobates frog species that look quite similar. Despite the difficulty, people do try to correctly identify which one it is, and the CV has all three options as suggestions in the appropriate area. I think they are describing a situation where instead of separating multiple species into their appropriate species designation, people are picking one species consistently (likely because the CV only has one species, and continues to get trained on multiple species as one species).
I mean, if you have the time to spare and the expertise, being the person to sort out those species complexes will begin to correct the problem because the CV will get trained on providing those multiple options and people who default to the CV options will be able to see there are multiple options. You can also flag the pages for the species that is being assigned to bump the issue to the curators and see if they can help you sort it out. While new observations come pouring in, it might be good to add your ID as the genus/higher level classification that includes the described species and have a copy+paste boilerplate message at hand saying something to the effect of “this could be species A, species B, or species C” so people aren’t confused why you are bumping it back up from species. I think a lot of tropical species have this issue.
I’m not a mod/iNaturalist employee and I’m not sure what the official recommendation is here, but it does seem reasonable to clean up what you can. For example, see this thread: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/harebell-help-needed/53414
As someone who just likes taking pictures and documenting things in nature, with no formal taxonomic identification training, I wish there was more accessible online resources for how to make better observations to make easier identifications. I want to be a better observer to make it easier on the diligent identifiers.
This inherently means that in order to improve my observation skills, I need to be knowledgeable on how to correctly identify, so that I can document the important bits and beyond just trying to take a pretty photo. I’ve tried to do this after others have given comments saying something like “probably such and such, but without the tail in focus no way to know for sure” which I appreciate. That kind of feedback can’t be expected for most things though. Mostly I still just try to take a picture of everything.
If those resources are there, I don’t really know how to find them, and if it’s just text on a page describing the difference between a bunch of similar species, it’s a bit overwhelming and can be hard to visualize for someone like me without much experience.
But yeah, most of my moths are unidentified, even several that were distinct enough I could get a species level guess.
We need more moth identifiers but don’t necessarily need more expert lepidopterists. Bird observations on iNat are often confirmed within seconds. This isn’t the result of the work of ornithologists. It results from the interest of avid birders.
Given the recent advocacy for, and interest in, pollinators there has been an increase in amateur melittologists and keen butterfly observers. The growth has been propelled by high-visibility projects, programs, and seminars intended to engage the general public. Moths lack that level of outreach.
In the end, it boils down to a lack of amateur moth-ers. We are out here but there aren’t enough of us.
For moths, if you go to the species page>About and see if there is a link to Moths of North Carolina there click that. There is usually some pretty good details on how to differentiate similar species, or can flat out say can’t be separated from photos. BugGuide will also sometimes have those notes on their species page.
I’m not sure what I’ve seen would necessarily be a complex, just more than one disparate species lumped under the same name. I now wish I had bookmarked the one with three.
FWIW, I’ve seen roughly 1,000 different moth species at my house since the middle of April. I’ve been able to find matches on iNat for roughly 800. I’ve gotten feedback on IDs on about 5%. Sphingiidae account for a lot of the IDs thanks to @stomlins701. Without their efforts it would be around 2%.
Thanks for your knowledge here. I’m limited by not being a lepidopterist, even if I am an entomologist. The subfields can be dauntingly different in terms of approaches and resources and what’s well-regarded by professionals. I’ve attempted to use MPG before but never got very far - I find it difficult to match spread leps to in-situ naturally posed individuals. I currently start my IDs with the Peterson guide then use BugGuide to refine and compare things not in the guide, which I’m finding is quite a lot. I am glad to hear that many experts are on here doing their best! I give them kudos for trying to keep up with the flood of incoming observations.
Yeah, I guess I should have said visually similar species or “cryptic species” (cryptic is in the eye of the beholder; some “cryptic species” in the literature are truly identical without e.g. DNA sequencing, but others are merely very similar and can be differentiated with appropriate photographs by an expert), since “species complex” would mean that they are close relatives, but with mimicry in Lepidoptera that is often not the case!
That’s incredible moth diversity you’ve seen and you are super dedicated to be logging it all. You may already know this, but you can add species (the remaining 200) to iNaturalist by going to the parent page (e.g. the genus) and placing a flag with a comment saying which species needs to be added and any relevant details, such as where you got the species name from. Of course, that addition process requires the active involvement of curators to follow through on the flag.
Also, if you’re interested, making a project page for Moths of Costa Rica (assuming one doesn’t already exist) can be very helpful. I often refer to the project page for an extremely thoroughly explored wildlife refuge near my home when making my IDs. That resource might not help you much, but it might help others posting Costa Rican species.
Anyway, I think what you’re doing is super cool and about a thousand times more scientifically valuable than my “here’s another common moth I saw that we know the species range of already, in a populated area of the eastern United States” posts :)
That’s a big ask!
Considering that I am much better at finding things than I am at understanding them, I have made it my goal to identify at least as many observations as I have made. It may take a while; I joined iNat four years ago, but only recently started IDing (which I started largely because of reading the many pleas, like yours, for more people to do IDing)
I only ID plants, so won’t be any help at all with moths, I’m afraid…
I was referring to systematically IDing other people’s observations on iNat, because I didn’t really understand how to use the “identify” function efficiently until recently, and was only IDing in a more hit-or-miss fashion.
Same boat here. And it was only because I was selfishly annoyed that posts I thought were easily identifiable were not being given any ID beyond my initial one. I had the revelatory moment that uh… I had only sporadically given 1/5 as many IDs as I had submissions, and if each submission requires 1 or more IDs, I had some catching up to do before I could rightfully complain. Then my use of iNaturalist moved from “personal log of things I’ve seen” to “community of people interested in identifying stuff.”
I guess maybe I had a “post and then leave” mentality from eBird where the only people who CAN offer alternate IDs on checklists are reviewers, and probably >99% of ebirders are not entrusted with that status.