Every now and then I also try to add annotations from their typed notes!
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I noticed. It really means a lot to me, thank you. Even if you could only agree with the genus or higher.
Relating that back to the thread topic: as you become less-new to iNaturalist, you will notice which taxa tend to get less attention. If any of those taxa arouse your curiosity, you could become one of those identifiers that so many of us long for. And any identification lower than family – a subfamily, a tribe, etc. – can still help get to Research Grade, especially if it turns out be an observation that cannot be identified to species. When an observation is marked “As good as it can be,” it will go to Casual if it stands at family or higher, and to Research Grade if it stands below family.
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Yes to that. I won’t tick the ‘push to RG’ box myself. But very satisfying when the taxon specialists do, where I am tidying thru the needs ID piles.
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I try to remember to do that to my own observations when appropriate, if only to lessen the burden on future identifiers in a minuscule way.
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Just joined your Pre-Maverick project :)
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Thank you! - was aiming at one hundred plus jp an I - we have 104 (minus 2 admins)
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https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/recognition-of-young-inatters/31178
I would add @zzravizz to the list of young iNatters we appreciate!
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What @wildskyflower said in https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/new-to-inaturalist-and-trying-to-help-with-identifications/42687/22 essentially coincides with what I see when rescuing things from the “unknown” abyss. Birds, butterflies and spiders are refined almost immediately, fungi less so (but I don’t really care about them except my orange coffeground-eater https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/142619959).
Pterygota probably isn’t even needed, I just use “insecta” - few people know that wingless insects like Zygentoma etc. even exist, so I guess insect IDers won’t restrict themselves to Pterygota either. Please correct me if I’m wrong here.
There are a few tricks to make finer IDs even as a layman (which I am) and other stuff:
- In caterpillar-like things, look which segments have legs (lepidoptera: 1-3, 6-9, maybe one pair at the very end), wikipedia has explanations for these and similar configurations (e.g. sawflies). If only the back is visible, I can say “Insecta” and add a commend (asking for a ventral or lateral view) unless I can tell what it is for other reasons. There seems to be someone who cleans up after my coarse insect IDs and puts them into finer groups.
- In many cases, one can see if it is a bug or a beetle. If not, often the picture was taken with a small dark animal on a bright background and the observer didn’t know (or forgot) to manually overexpose in order to show the insect (see e.g. my https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/172003575); I tend to explain that in a comment. This can lead to coarser IDs, e.g. ladybeetle larvae and jumping spiders look the same if the picture is bad enough (blurry (i.e. no legs visible) and underexposed), those go into Arthropoda.
2a. Be careful with adult insects that look like Lepidoptera, the (in)famous Spotted Lanternfly is a counterxample (it’s a bug). There are more. - Molluscs can be refined into gastropods and bivalves, I don’t remember having encountered others in “unknown” (people probably know what a kraken looks like ;-) ). Unfortunately slugs are polyphyletic, so the absence of a shell doesn’t allow a finer ID.
- Before saying “Diptera”, I try to look for halteres unless I’m sure from other criteria.
- Fungi: I was told in another forum thread that misidentifying a slime mold as “Fungi” isn’t that harmful, because knowledgeable IDers fix that (but one should follow one’s notifications and withdraw if necessary). For “ordinary” fungi (the well-defined mushroom shaped ones) I think there is no danger. Unfortunately there is no useful common taxon of these two (that would be Amorphea which INat doesn’t have). There are “mushrooms” that are Ascomycetes, so I put in Basidiomceta only those where the underside looks like Boletales (I’ve heard no Ascomycetes look like that).
- Also in another thread, we were told that lifting weeds from “unknown” into “plantae” doesn’t really help due to the workflow of some plant IDers. So either leave them alone or make at least Brassicaceae, Lamiaceae etc.
- Always look at the CV suggestions (but don’t accept them unless you are sure yourself), maybe there are hints that what you think the picture displays is wrong (I once misidentified a member of Onograceae as Brassicaceae, in addition I had forgotten to count the stamens (it had 8, Brassicaceae have 6), CV might have avoided that).
- Again something from other forum threads: If the observation has a placeholder, leave the ID alone (maybe add a comment asking why the thing wasn’t IDd as a butterfly if the placeholder says so).
- INat is a bit behind concerning recently introduced clades. If we hat Endopterygota, we could dump caterpillar-like things there; if we had the APG-IV system we could group plants a bit better; and if we had Toxicofera we could put snake-ish things there if they might also be slowworms. This is not going to change soon due to the high amount of work for the DB programmers that entails.
- If you encounter a group of pictures that are clearly different things, explain in a comment that they should be separated and add the link https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/how-to-fix-your-observation-with-photos-of-multiple-species/15096 . This usually happens when a school explodes and releases gazillions of students who weren’t told how to use INat.
- You can follow an observation (button in the top right) when interested but don’t know what it is.
And most importantly:
12. ALWAYS watch your notifications. If something has been refined, I unfollow (using the same Follow button) the thing unless interested in it for other reasons (I do this for the fungi to reduce the amount of notifications I get later).
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May I quote you there in whatever forum (thread and/or project) I set up “soon” for the Africa Unknown/Plantae IDBlitz (or something)? Because that’s the pitch for it right there.
I’m seeing the list as
-observer: Tony, et al (the Tony in Africa this time ;) )
-identifiers: Level 1-5 noobs aka raw recruits in other floristic provinces who still want to help, et al
-mentions: locals and/or knowledgeable experts who may like to mentor above as they go
Actual challenge could probably be sometime in August maybe, since my summer class will be winding down and I’ll want to do something besides prep for fall semester. Right now it’s in the planning stage. Or if that’s a poor timeframe for general for botany id, I’d welcome a recommendation for any month prior to the Great Southern Bioblitz. Thanks for advice!
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Verifiable plants in SE Texas: 545,669
Ver in SETX genus or better: 504,072 (92%)
Verifiable plants in Louisiana: 230,556
Ver in LA genus or better: 215,550 (93%)
I’m slowly chipping away at those above genus level. Only 1305 pages to go for SE Texas. 
A lot lighter load for Louisiana: 468 pages left.
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You may.
You and @bobmcd are also part of my team. The pair of you hooked me on identifying.
August is probably a good choice. In September we explode into spring flowers (way down South).
I much appreciate the project format (with a few journal posts). @jeanphilippeb (and the Pre-Maverick Project) is another team member.
I am convinced that teaching observers to identify, makes them better observers. Win win.
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Go ahead and ID as best you can. But copypasta the placeholder text, so the info is not lost.
For example Named species with a tiny typo,
or needs to be flagged for Missing species.
For me (in Africa) - it is more efficient to leave difficult plants Unknown. Better to pick thru the broad planty IDs for those I CAN move to family - where they have a chance of being filtered for a finer ID.
But clearly places with more identifiers have a different workflow that works for them.
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Maybe we need something equivalent to those signs you see on large trucks where a driver is being trained. You know, maybe:
“CAUTION: Student iNat Identifier in training. Be prepared for wide taxonomic turns. Stay well back and thank you for your patience.”
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RE: Fungi, AFAIK there are very few cap-and-stem shrooms in ascomycete (the only ones that kind of look like it are a few fungi in Pezizales, mainly things like Morchella, Gyromitra, and Helvella, so honestly Basidiomycete is almost always safe for most mushrooms.
That said, I’m usually just looking in Fungi anyway because most people just… put stuff in fungi.
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While theoretically IDing to pterygota adds almost no information over IDing to insecta, a subset of the IDers who can refine both to order/family will only switch their workflow to include insecta when pterygota is nearly empty (and at the moment pterygota has almost 90k observations). So while I have no hard data to back this up my feeling is that on average pterygota IDs get refined faster than insecta IDs.
This only applies in Africa. Elsewhere and especially in North America just refine plants as far as you can.
It is true that most observations ID’d to ‘dicots’ will probably stay there for the foreseeable future, but that is mainly because most observations ID’d to dicots actually are difficult or impossible to refine further. I suppose a significant fraction could probably be refined slightly, to order ‘rosales’ or ‘asterales’ or something, but for me refining difficult plants from class to order feels unrewarding unless I feel like there is a decent chance that doing so will eventually lead to it getting below family so it can go RG.
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I’m honored to be on your team. Salute (or whatever)! ;)
How I visualize my team: If you id an observation that I also id, at some level you are on my team. Go Team! The more the merrier! “Join Usss” (zombie-ish voice)
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Thank you @DianaStuder for the recognition!
@ralfmuschall Thank you for this post. It is very helpful and a great go-to post that I can bookmark!
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And here is the first slime that I had to withdraw : https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/161095495
The mis-ID was probably useful - it wouldn’t have been found at all in “unknown”.
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Best guess that gets a response from a taxon specialist. Win win. Working as intended Team iNat.
I have made an URL for broad planty IDs that I check each day. That way I can retrieve the easy (for a local identifier) ones from limbo.
Cape Peninsula I can keep up.
For example I have just retrieved this from dicots. Planted at Kirstenbosch, but was not marked casual.
Please note - this is my own obs - NOT the one I retrieved (since the observer dutifully followed iNat guidelines by ‘dumping in dicots’).
Africa sob 30K mostly Difficult Dicots. From Unknown to Plantae to Dicot. 3 circles of hell in limbo. Where it is vital to catch any ooops disappeared, there WAS placeholder text. And to add missing species to fill in gaps for the future obs.
For example Trees mostly which someone needs to work thru. Open each one. Check for possible ID in notes or placeholder. Unfortunately I missed a few, when I first swept thru with Mark as Reviewed Next. (remember to try Uncle Google for possible tiny typo if ID looks plausible)
If missing species, add ID at broader available level. Copypasta info to a comment. Flag for missing species at the broader level. Hunt for the POWO link - then it is quick and easy for curators. Must be the POWO since that is what iNat uses for plant taxonomy! With good intentions, it is easy ID work. But there is such a monumental backlog.
PS if I added a helpful ID for Missing species I will go back and withdraw. Absolutely do not want to be on a TINY leaderboard!
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Related tips:
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If you can recognize your specimen as Phylum Basidiomycota, you can go to Subphylum Agaricomycotina if you can also recognize it as not a rust, and not a smut.
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If you can also recognize that your Agaricomycotina item is not a “jelly type” (there are a few kinds), it can go into Agaricomycetes (where I’m shoveling a lot of Kingdom Fungi to).
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