- Construction : Useful.
- Evidence of feeding : Helpful, although I usually just call this “leftovers”. Strikes me as requiring more knowledge of an organism’s behaviour.
- Eastern porcupine tooth marks… so I’d guess feeding?
- Scratch or rub : I would favour something broader that doesn’t imply knowledge of the animal’s purpose in interacting with the environment. Feels ambiguous to me.
- Often along a trail I will see a hole dug by a grizzly, possibly in the process of obtaining food. Is this “evidence of feeding” or “construction” or “scratch or rub”?
- Stumps of trees downed by a chewing beaver. Is this “construction” or “evidence of feeding” or both? e.g. Observation of downed tree stump
- Hair : Makes sense.
- I’d use it on a chunk of fur + skin that I found
- Gall : Helpful! I’d like to be able to filter for gall photos to compare with ones I’ve seen.
- Leaf mine : I’m uninformed here. Probably helpful.
Missing:
- Tooth : Teeth aren’t bones (they’re Luxury Bones™), but bones are listed as being “endoskeletal”. Might be good to formally expand the “Bone” category or create a separate one, since they’re a fairly common find:
A general trend that I’ve been observing on the usage of Track is that some might take it to be a more expansive term. Although you define track in a particular way,
I’ve seen several uses on iNat where it is being used on evidence besides prints or impressions. Perhaps in some communities (perhaps hunters), “track” has a larger connotation; I recall a hunter acquaintance of mine using the noun “track” in a more expansive sense. Dictionary definitions also tend to go wider (e.g. “detectable evidence that something has passed”).
Might be worth clarifying with “track pattern” or “track imprints”. Looking at Chordata photos and filtering by “Track” has a small but noticeable number (<5%) of the observations being in a different sense. Some might include broken branches, although I’m not sure that would better fit in rubbing/scratching.
