New Annotation: Evidence of Presence

It goes well under organism (it includes whole or part), or we would need to add all the body parts for each group separately.

Okay here’s an interesting one that doesn’t seem to be covered by anything yet - I was bitten by a brown tree snake (Boiga irregularis) while removing it from a staircase a couple of years back (they seem to love staircases and bikes for some reason):


What type of evidence is this? It’s similar to feeding signs but obviously wouldn’t fit under that. It’s also kind of similar to e.g. scratches left in a tree by a climbing animal, but in this case it also seems different because it was the result of active defensive behaviour rather than just a passive track or something. Thoughts?

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If tracks in the snow can be used to identify the animal that left them, then surely those bitemarks on your arm can serve the same purpose. You’ve got the entire teeth formula there! The snake left a track, I would say.

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Currently though track is reserved for markings left in ground or snow as per this comment. It’s not even used for markings in tree trunks or the like

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And that is a pity. Because currently there is no way of annotating it, such information gets lots.

We’re awaiting when our proposals will be added! Now you really can’t annotate most “non-organism” observations, so they’re not lost, they will get their annotations too when the time comes!.)

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Yeah as @fffffffff said, there are more to be added! I was just wondering what type a bite would be, because it does not seem to come under any of the proposed additions so far

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Its not supposed to be used for markings on trees, but if a new annotation option covering it isn’t added soon, it will become the de facto standard as people guess the most similar annotation … in fact this is already happening; look at all the scratch marks on tree trunks, rubs, and foraged stumps being ID’d as bear tracks

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I’m not sure if horns have been discussed yet. Dall sheep example: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/92368794

Is a horn considered endoskeletal?

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The horn sheath is keratin not bone so isn’t skeletal, technically. But I suppose claws attached to a mammal skeletal foot would be considered part of the skeleton, so maybe. Good question.

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I found out if I annotate for Evidence of Presence “molt” it automatically goes to a collection project for molts that @onidiras created. Hooray!

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I would like to use ‘nest’ for all kinds of birds homes, including ‘burrows’.
In Spanish, my native language, a ‘nido’ is the home of a bird, even if it is a cave in the mountain as in vultures.
Maybe is the same in English?

Regarding galls, aren’t they eggs, or larvae? The ones most common here are the oak and rose galls that have tiny baby gall wasps inside.

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Yes a gall is a swelling of plant tissue caused by the grub living inside it, but it’s not equivalent to the grub. It’s something like a home or a feeding mark but I guess it’s probably its own thing.

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To add, galls can also be formed and inhabited by (adult) mites, aphids or even bacteria and fungi (if the term ‘gall’ includes those swellings as well) - so these structures are not necessarily the homes of developing larvae

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Leaf-mines and galls would be particularly helpful I think.
For anyone who doesn’t know these, its impossible to discern if it’s a fly or a moth or something else, so it ends up stuck in Winged Insects where neither Lepidoptera or the relevant Diptera identifiers even see it.

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This was a great addition! Any chance nest/burrow could be added, or is it covered by ‘track’?

It seems like a few virologists have found the site. So many parasitoids are evidence of the presence of a virus which they all possess. It seems to me that adding evidence of presence of virus is better than trying to get everyone to duplicate records of every parasitoid that relies on them. It starts with Cotesia and ends with every idiobiont parasitoid? Most wasps and some flies…

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That isn’t unlike a number of other cases in which the same photo is used for multiple observations—a tree and a vine; a flowering bush and the nest built in it. When I do this, I enter a note with a link to the other observation in the description of each observation.

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9 posts were split to a new topic: Evidence of Presence: A Lot

I really think “fur” (or “fur/hair”) needs to be added as a choice to the Evidence of Presence field for observations of mammals.

In the Rockies and Cascades, sightings of mountain goat fur are much more common than sightings of goats themselves. (Here’s an example.) They’re expanding their ranges in southern Washington and central Oregon, and fur snagged on trees is one way to track their progress. As long as these observations are being posted anyway, why not expand the “Evidence” tag to cover them?

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