There are people on iNaturalist who identify organisms that they never have encountered in the real world. I’m one of those people - for example, I used to identify some observations of a species called Zephyranthes traubii, after collecting information about the species even though I have never seen the species “in real life”, and there is probably no chance of me ever seeing it “in real life”.
I am curious as to what the iNaturalist community here on the forums thinks of this type of practice, assuming it’s done responsibly? Is it something that should be discouraged? encouraged? should identifiers only identify species they have personally seen/encountered?
I live in North Carolina, where the local deer is the white-tail. The other species in the genus are the mule deer and one that’s found only in Mexico. I’ve found a fair number of observations in western North America where I could tell that it’s a mule deer and identified it so. I see nothing wrong with this.
There are many people who arent able to engage with nature physically due to various limiting factors. I think its awesome that they can still engage with nature in a meaningful way through sharing thier ability to ID, and growing thier knowledge through such a process.
If you look at enough images and know the right diagnostic characters, it’s totally possible to learn how to identify a species without seeing it in person.
Of course, sometimes people will just hit the “Agree” button even if they don’t necessarily know how to ID a species. Whenever there’s an Observation of the Week, they get tons of agreeing IDs, and they almost certainly are not from people who can actually provide an independent ID. Although that’s a different problem.
I identify a lot of species I have never personally encountered.
I also don’t identify a lot more species I have never personally encountered.
It all comes down to knowing the limits of one’s knowledge and expertise, which often involves some research first to find out what look-alike species might be present in the area.
For iNat to work with rare or elusive species, it’s pretty much a requirement! Some of the first photographs of a species alive are part of iNat observations! That Ted Talk with Scott Loarie has some neat examples.
Regardless of one’s own personal encounters, specializing on a taxon can often impart expertise about details and differences that people who frequently encounter it do not have. Knowing which traits can vary regionally and which are constant can allow someone to provide helpful information to someone who sees it every day in their back yard. If you know something useful to someone else, why not share? :)
I’ve never confidently seen Z. traubii in person before, but I know that it’s a G3 lily endemic to Texas! I think I could confidently ID it if I looked at a key and some online photos.
Identifying organisms that you’ve never seen in person is not only acceptable, it’s encouraged! We can learn by stepping out of our comfort zones. When we make mistakes, we can correct them and learn that way.
Please definitely ID what you are comfortable with. I’m sure you’re great at ID’ing Z. traubii!
I’m one of the top identifiers of genus Araucaria. While I’ve seen a fair number of species in this genus irl as cultivated plants, most of my knowledge about this genus comes from reading about them on the internet. I’m #3 in identifying hoop pine, a species I have never seen irl.
Several years ago I was surveying a pastor’s lot and saw one (I don’t know which species, they’re all monkey puzzle to me). I told him “Esto es un pehuén”. He didn’t know the word, which isn’t that surprising, as he’s Mexican and the word is from South America.
Identifying something in the field is often a different skill than identifying it from photos. Some things are easier, some things are harder, but for the most part referencing photos to ID photos doesn’t require someone to have observed that species in the field to be proficient at it.
This largely depends on the group of organisms in question. Identifying insects is often problematic, and at times even impossible, based on photographs. With the exception of the largest and most conspicuous species, accurate identification requires knowledge of specific diagnostic features, which, in my experience, cannot be adequately learned from field guides alone—without examining actual specimens, it is very difficult to acquire this knowledge. In such cases, I believe it is often irresponsible when users provide identifications based on AI-generated suggestions without having relevant experience. (Although I have also made this mistake myself.)
(Define “responsibly”…)
If you positively know you have correct, up-to-date keying patterns for the task (before your eyes or in your mind), and you also know that further info (e.g. experience of spatial-temporal variability, of local habitats…) would be superfluous: you do you.
Worst case if the observer finds your ID too bold/misleading, they can discard it by opting out.
Well, it is conceivable that a person hasn’t had the occasion to see most species in this planet, so thumb up for their right to identify them.
Depending on the species, they can be reliably identified by those who hasn’t seen them in person or, on the other hand, they can be almost impossible to identify in photos even by experts who know them well.
If that would be an issue, a lot of IDs (here, but also in other contexts) would not be made. I made about 50.000 IDs in North America and about 30.000 in Asia despite never having been to any of those places.. so I have seen almost none of those species in person.
Especially for photo ID having seen them in person is often not really necessary.. if they can be IDed by characteristics visible in a photo, it is also possible to learn those characteristics by photos. If there are no such characteristics then having seen them in real life won’t really help either
Identifying from photos is an art in it’s own right. When I first started identifying on iNat, I made quite a few mistakes because I didn’t fully appreciate this. It takes time to learn how to do it reasonably well, and many of the skills required for identifying directly from specimens don’t really cross over to identifying from photos.
There are many excellent identifiers who developed their skills from little more than internet research. It wouldn’t be at all surprising if they became collectively more reliable at identifying from photos than a random pool of experts. To a large extent, all citizen science must be based on similar assumptions. Familiarity with the subject is never a starting requirement. If exoplanets can be discovered with the help of citizen science, there’s no reason why novice nature enthusiasts can’t find species previously unknown to them amongst iNaturalist data.
Considering this from the other direction: there are lots of organisms I have personally seen, however fleetingly, but this does not mean I can ID them except in a very broad sense (small brown songbird, shelf fungi, water beetle, etc.). If having directly encountered an organism does not endow me with the skills to correctly and precisely ID it the next time I come across one, whether in person or in photos, why should the converse be true?
The ability to correctly categorize an organism does not directly correlate with whether we have personal experience of that organism. We are capable of recognizing all kinds of things that we have not personally seen. I have never been to Paris, but this does not mean I would be unable to recognize the Eiffel tower or a photo thereof.
I ID a lot of bees, which is a group that consists of some very distinct and easily recognizable species and lots of species that may be quite difficult to distinguish even with a specimen available for examination under a microscope. Whether I feel competent to ID photos of a particular species depends on a variety of factors that are mostly not connected with whether I have ever seen one myself. There are common species I have seen but struggle to confidently ID because there are very similar lookalikes. There are some rare species that are so distinctive that I am perfectly comfortable IDing them even if I have only ever seen them in photos; if we could only ID species we have seen personally, the rarest and most exceptional finds would never get confirmed.
That said, I do find that having seen a particular species in person is often helpful for deepening one’s understanding of what it looks like – there are often things that are not mentioned in the literature and there is a particular tangibility to the experience of seeing something first-hand that is not adequately captured in photos or even video. So in a general sense, having seen a species myself increases the likelihood that I will feel familiar enough with it to ID it. However, being able to recognize a species in the field may or may not then translate into knowledge that is useful for identifying photos – for example, there are some bees that I can often recognize even without seeing them properly based on a combination of habitat, movement patterns, size, and pitch and volume of their buzzing. But none of this works for photo ID.
I am also generally reluctant to ID based on a textual key alone without having reliably ID’d reference images (ideally photos rather than drawings) to use as a comparison. I’m sure there are people who are skilled enough to look at a specimen or an image and be confident that what they are seeing corresponds with what is described in a written text, but this sort of visualization is not one of my talents. This is particularly the case when the relevant characteristics are somewhat subjective, as is quite common for many insects (e.g. “coarse” vs. “fine” punctuation of the thorax). But even when a description is unambiguous I may find that I don’t feel like I “know” it well enough to be comfortable IDing it unless I additionally have access to some kind of visual reference.
I don’t have a problem with it. Let’s say there is a rare species someone finds while backpacking through a remote region. The adventurer who found it is probably not that same person who knows the specific literature to identify this rare species.
I do feel people who see something a lot in the wild can pick up on tiny ID features that are somewhat consistent, but too vague to note in literature, and can probably do a better job of identifying something from a bad photo.