New Annotation: Evidence of Presence

[marina_gorbunova]

I understand it! I just try to add all I can if I do at all.

[brian_d]

I recommend adding nest, unless it’s already planned.

[fluffyinca]

I have an observation of a mosquito, where the evidence is a bite on my arm. Does that count as “Track”? If not, it would be cool to add one for “Food” which would also cover things like owl pellets, leaf mines and torn-apart prey.

[muddytortoise]

all humans should be annotated as mosquito food :-)

[kaipatiki_naturewatc]

When I annotated my own small collection of non-organism observations, eggshell and nest were common among them.
Personally I would favour “home” for nest as it is easily translatable and removes the need for dozens of home types in the list.

While we wait for “eggshell” to be covered, through the excellent process being conducted in this thread, does anyone have a suggested annotation? Mine are usually a single broken shell on the ground. Occasionally an unbroken one…presumably that is organism, life stage=egg? And, if cold, dead?

[fluffyinca]

I would say marking any eggs / egg fragments as “Organism”, “Life Stage: Egg” and “Dead or Alive: Cannot Be Determined” should be sufficient while we wait for more annotation options.

[kaipatiki_naturewatc]

Thanks, will do.

[jasonhernandez74]

@kyle_eaton_photography

leave the “Alive or Dead” field blank, as I consider that to apply to what’s pictured, and the molt isn’t alive

Technically, isn’t a molt made of dead cells that were once alive? Like the dead skin we constantly shed?

[marina_gorbunova]

But organism itself is not dead, so they should stay separated, plus it’s an interesting observation different than just dead body.

[kaipatiki_naturewatc]

@jasonhernandez74

dead cells that were once alive

I think that covers every dead cellular organism or part of organism, including dead skin cells:)

[tiwane]

Regarding Alive or Dead - remember that an observation records an encounter with an organism or recent evidence of an organism in a time and place. If you came across a snake molt on July 6th at 4:05 pm, I would argue that you don’t know whether the actual snake that left the molt is alive or dead on July 6th at 4:05 pm, so the correct value would be Cannot be determined..

[kaipatiki_naturewatc]

So that is the same as eggshells, life or death Cannot be determined.
And nests or other homes.

[marina_gorbunova]

Depending if shells are from hatched egg or eaten, with the scond it’s safe to say it’s dead.

[dianastuder]

How is ‘cannot be determined’ useful? As opposed to no annotation?

[jnstuart]

Unless the eaten egg is considered evidence of an ovipositing female in which case the subject organism could be alive. But I’m obviously overthinking all this. ;-)

[kaipatiki_naturewatc]

That is how I always see a bird’s egg, actually…as evidence of breeding, and sometimes of hatching if a broken shell is fresh and clean, and sometimes as evidence of likely predation or nest stealing by another bird

[matthew_connors]

I find it useful primarily because it removes sightings from the pool of unannotated sightings

[edlugie]

I have a recent observation of a turtle shell (no turtle included ), and I’m wondering if this fits within any of these values. I thought Molt might have worked, but I wouldn’t consider the shell as having been “discarded”. I’m no turlte expert; are their shells considered Bone?

[marina_gorbunova]

You can choose between bone and organism (as it’s part of it), it has more than just bone, but choosing bone will make this observation searchable.

[jnstuart]

A turtle shell, minus the turtle, is the same as finding bones of any vertebrate animal. It signifies a dead turtle. The shell is bone (modified ribs mostly).