New Annotation: Evidence of Presence

Duplicating the observation is the only way (now) to annotate both the cow and the calf. It seems a waste of computer space, though. I just choose one to annotate or leave that annotation blank.

3 Likes

My preference is to leave the annotation blank if two life stages are shown. That way, on the life stage annotation graph, if a species is curated well, you can almost infer “multiple life stages” from the “no annotation” curve.

1 Like

Adding my support for a Burrow or Nest category. Some burrows like that of the gopher tortoise are distinctive enough to warrant such.

4 Likes

No, that is the exact opposite of what I was saying. I’m saying that you can’t automatically have it fill in “organism” if you select “alive” because you could have seen that it was alive but did not get a photo of the organism, only the tracks. Yes, other people can’t verify that it is alive but someone could select this thinking that if they saw it alive that they should and then if it auto marked as organism that would be incorrect.

I was also thinking songs/calls. If you have an audio recording then you know it was alive, but does that count as an organism or will there be a future evidence of presence for song/call?

1 Like

That is not incorrect, you always can leave a note you saw it, but if you add organism, it will show in search for organism, while it’s not there.

2 Likes

If you duplicate an observation and use the same photo, it doesn’t duplicate the photo (i.e. waste space). The photo becomes associated with more than one observation. Example: https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/13293297

But having separate photos (one of calf, one of cow) in separate observations and annotating each one isn’t really a waste of space if your files are not large. I do this for male and female birds:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/82944783
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/82944780

8 Likes

Well, we should believe users, otherwise we can’t verify any info they provide, they can change EXIF, etc. For me it is more of a searh problem than evidence problem, if I search for alive/not known it should show everything but dead (it includes tracks), if I search for organism, it should have an organism in it.

3 Likes

I also have questions how to annotate audio recordings.

1 Like

I’ve been using “track” for leaf mines because they record a history of the animals’ movements.

I would also label “track” for slime trails and radula tracks.

2 Likes

in the case of birds, may be useful to add the value ‘Nest’ to the list of ‘Evidence of Presence’

This could also apply for some fish.

1 Like

I saw this addition and thought great but we do need a category for ‘homes’. That is: bird nests; other veterbrate burrows; insect structures (such as ant nest entrances, Lepidoptera shelters etc).
Many of these are identifiable to species and are often identified to species on iNat without any other evidence of the organism.

4 Likes

For those asking for some sort of “home” annotation value, I think the most useful thing you can do to push this forward is to answer some of the questions Tony outlined in the original post.

  • Should one single value apply to all types of homes, or should there be one for nest, one for burrow, one for hive, etc.?
  • Exactly which taxa should this apply to (especially if multiple different values)?
  • What should this value be in English (e.g. “domicile”, “construction”), and is it easily translatable to other languages?

Try to think of how edge cases should be handled, for example a deer bed or a bower.

9 Likes

I’d be happy calling all the things you mention “homes” or domiles or constructions. (deer beds, bowers, nests, burrows, hives, etc.) People will be able to tell which kind from the species, in general. I’m not even unhappy calling a beaver dam a “home” since beavers that make dams do so to produce the ponds they live in.

4 Likes

The definition of track is “Impression in ground or snow made by an organism.”, it’s really not meant to cover leaf mines.

4 Likes

btw it’s shown there if you point cursor on it, far from being intuitive to find it out:
image

1 Like

It would be nice if “Organism” were the first choice, because 997 times out of a thousand, that will be the choice. Must these choices be alphabetical?

5 Likes

Suppose I heard a bird song? I have no photo, but I certainly know that bird is alive.

1 Like

If you record and submit the bird song, it’s the same as a photo — evidence of a live organism.

1 Like

What do you all think about this borderline case? Photo #1 caribou leg with exposed bone. Photo #2 caribou lower jaw.

Choices:
Organism : Whole or partial organism.
Bone Predominantly endoskeletal remains. Partial bone exposure in an otherwise intact organism should be labeled “organism”.
Don’t annotate if none of the values are a good match, don’t annotate the observation.

2 Likes

I think we can split animal architecture from temporary bedding down marks which I would regard as tracks and maybe better amalgamated as traces.

2 Likes