Wait, we can put aliens on iNat? How do I choose location not on Earth?
I didnāt even know this was a thing thatās pretty cool, when did they add this?
Iām not sure, but that feature has been around since I first heard of iNaturalist (so around a year and a half - 2 years at the minimum)
a long time ago, the feature already existed early 2019, so was added before that
My idea was that it helps other IDers, so they can skip empty observations altogether. So far I applied it only to obs that lacked everything (ID, media, comment, notes). I think I know how such obs happen: one wants to take pictures of a bird or insect, opens the mobile app, starts working and the beast flies away. If one isnāt careful, one has created an empty observation (thatās one of the reasons I use the camera app for everything, then import the image files into inat).
Where is āgall landā? I sometimes see blobs on leaves, but I have no idea if these are animal galls, fungal growths, viral diseases or something else, so I just skip them. Is there a project similar to āBeach Blobsā or āLarvae of Endopterygotaā where I can dump such obs so people can sort them out?
It is already possible for IDers to exclude observations without photos or sounds, so it isnāt necessary to use the DQA in this way and can actually be harmful. For instance, some users upload observations without media and add photos/sounds later. However, they may not notice that a DQA downvote has been used on their observation and not counteract it when they add their media. If that happens, a totally fine observation may languish in Casual grade because of a DQA vote that is incorrect. These types of situations are uncommon, but I do find them when I ID Casual observations.
In North America, thereās the Galls of North America project. Off iNat, thereās the Gallformers.org website, which has lots of information on galls of the U.S. and Canada.
But I suspect from your observations that you are in Europe, so those probably wonāt help, except to give you a general idea of what galls look like. Maybe try this Europe Galls umbrella project?
Yes, Iām in Europe, but I have only observed one such thing in question (it turned out to be a fungus, https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/164443674). Iām asking mainly because from time to time I add coarse IDs to global unknowns (adding IDs like Brassicaceae, Aves etc., some 14k+ so far). Blobs on some beach get thrown into āBeach Blobsā, and unclear caterpillar-like animals into the identically intended āLarvae of Endopterygotaā (which I created a few days ago). These projects are essentially morphologically defined groups (at least the first, the other is a consequence of Inatās taxonomy missing the clade) where one can dump things that arenāt related but look the same, for other people to sort out later. Iāll look at the gall projects when I see something for them.
I live in a very seasonal area with snow so a quirky iNat thing I do is look out for observations where the background vegetation clearly doesnāt match the observation date. Usually itās just an unintentional error that the observer fixes quickly after I comment, and I remove my DQA vote for āincorrect date.ā This is easiest for observed mammals that typically would be hibernating or plants that wouldnāt be flowering or leafed out, etc. Observation date and location seem like the āeasiestā things to be sloppy with on iNat / the āhardestā things for others to validate, so I like the obscure detective work of finding observations that merit a little more attention and questioning to improve accuracy beyond just taxonomic accuracy.
I am so happy to do it!
Project-/geography-independent place: ID as Life, annotate as Gall. Or if you can get it to Arthropod vs Fungi, Gall annotation is enabled in those too! :)
Yes!!! Thank you to the makers of those two fields, I always make sure to add them to observations I identify!
Yes! This. I always forget to annotate my observations because I take the photos on my phone and upload through the app.
I know I should do it more thoroughly, but I usually donāt have my laptop with me and by the time I have access to it I have forgotten about itā¦
So Iām really grateful to those who do it!
And I was worried that I would come off like an āinsufferable know-it-allā for doing that. I guess I should just not worry about it, and keep annotating!
You definitely do not! Iām always happy to see filled out annotations, especially those I didnāt know. I learned to distinguish male and female for a few species that way. :D
Agree! Especially as all the (illegal) wildlife trade observations are quickly marked as casual as well, despite not being casual observations at all.
I do a bit of all this, but also (rarely): I choose one or more photos to illustrate a taxon that doesnāt have any (or I replace the existing ones with better ones when they are posted).
And Iād also like to say a few words of congratulations for any interesting observations (new to the country or region, not seen for a long timeā¦).
I quite enjoy IDing unknowns to kingdom or order and helping introduce new naturalists to the site. Itās an easy thing for me to do as someone whoās not very confident with my ID skills.
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