Do any of you have an interesting observation that has been sitting in your list for ages but has still not gone to research grade?

Hi Diana. I’m pretty new to iNat but I must admit that I find myself making time to take a virtual hike and ID whatever I can (with my limited knowledge) every day. It seems at the moment I’m having as much fun IDing the observations of others as my own!

[image] AdamWargon: While this is true, it’s also the case that it’s easy for a toddler to say, “Mommy, Daddy, what is that?!” “What is what, honey?” (landscape photos) It takes a lot more knowledge and confidence to actually answer the kid’s question. Just so this doesn’t devolve into anot…

[image] lynnharper: Identifying is just not as much fun as observing. Except in New England in the dead of winter (now) when the temperature is hovering well below freezing, and there’s nothing much to observe but tracks in the snow (exciting!) birds at the feeders (fun!) moss and lichen (har…

We could go dip-netting for dragonfly larvae and such in the rivers, if they’re not frozen over. OK, that’s a stretch. Even if the rivers aren’t frozen, one’s fingers soon will be. I haven’t made any new observations in months, alas. I really do need to get out somewhere soon.

10,117 observations 5,622 research grade Although I try to take many pictures and quite good quality. There just is not enough identifiers. And also ofcourse it can tire them up when most observations are of the common species and many times info is missing to make sure identification And also, …

Yes. Identifiers do choose to delete all their IDs. That is part of the reason why we need to spread IDs across more people. So an individual loss is not a disaster.

[image] turo: And also ofcourse it can tire them up when most observations are of the common species and many times info is missing to make sure identification Another problem is needless duplication. Opinions may differ regarding reporting multiple individuals of a species all found at the …

[image] rcavasin: I wonder what the carbon footprint of the average iNat observation would be. Not an expert but I’d imagine it’d be really quite small. The carbon output of having a few megabytes sitting on a hard drive is going to be almost negligible (I don’t know enough about the exact dr…

I agree that the carbon footprint of a single iNat observation is likely to be negligibly tiny. It will be dwarfed by orders of magnitude by the effort of the observer to get to the location where they are observing, the energy that went into creating their phone/devices, and the energy their body e…

Observations that take a long time to reach Research Status

General

cthawley January 6, 2026, 12:26am 37

Just linking this older thread which touches on many similar ideas:

https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/what-to-do-with-long-unidentified-observations/5728

Topic		Replies	Views
Do you make more observations on iNat or identifications General question	116	1796	December 3, 2024
Do older unidentified observations get buried and less likely to get attention? General	43	1374	December 25, 2024
Identifications taking longer? General	155	4232	October 13, 2025
Shouting into the Abyss - Why do some "easy" observations sometimes go unidentified? General	80	2256	July 23, 2024
Why won’t anyone help identify my specimens I find? General	112	2516	June 19, 2026

Observations that take a long time to reach Research Status

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