Three years ago, I uploaded a single, fuzzy photo of a tiny… ant? wasp? I could not be sure so I left it at Narrow-waisted Wasps, Ants, and Bees. A year later a top identifier agreed with me. The years passed. Then two days ago, out of nowhere, an Identifier whose profile charmingly says they are “…

I’m glad you didn’t let that bad comment drive you away!

Now and then an id will come in, but it’s slow going. I still have hundreds that have never gotten a comment of any kind.

Yup! That is why I titled it Patience payoffs. :wink: I definitely benefit from watching at length, observing how things move and interact with each other. It helps me to associate and sort them and fix them in my mind. (It also is helpful because I live in a part of the world where Identifications…

The funny thing is, the butterfly photos I took while waiting for the tide to go out were not only identified, but some were even called “interesting,” and were used as illustrations in a butterfly website. Meanwhile, the mollusks remain in limbo.

Yes. Many more people like butterflies than molluscs. Molluscs are probably almost as slow as most plants.

Kind of unfortunate, since mollusks are all really cool animals.

One of my favourite things when IDing is to sort by ‘random’. Often observations that are years old come up that were just missed, they’re not even too tough for me to ID to genus or species. Sometimes, the person has given up on iNat by then. Other times, they’re like Wow! Thank you for seeing this…

Just got an id confirmed! https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/161126944#activity_identification_29ebfea3-4921-4be9-8417-e75db8b09689

when I joined iNat over five years ago, I was one of the earliest to post records of the invasive Euphorbia maculata in Israel. I spent some time in herbaria to work on more sect. Anisophyllum and was dismayed that they only had one record of E. maculata - from (IIRC) 2012! I decided to check all t…

Patience payoffs

General

ItsMeLucy January 10, 2025, 1:54pm 36

WOW! Yes in all caps because it ought to be shouted!

@tiwane can we suggest Observations to be highlighted in the sidebar? This one.

PD: would also fit in well in this thread, just wanted to admire that aspect.

Topic		Replies	Views
Waiting for ID`s General	50	1592	October 25, 2025
Do older unidentified observations get buried and less likely to get attention? General	43	1356	December 25, 2024
Patience is a virtue General	44	1531	February 3, 2021
Get ID to old observations General	31	1069	June 18, 2026
Observations that take a long time to reach Research Status General	48	1343	January 8, 2026

Patience payoffs

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