Just stopping by this thread again, you guys have done some very impressive work here! Well done everyone! I actually have another victory to share as well. I finally got an ID on a little centipede I found last fall. Turns out it’s the first RG observation of Cryptops hortensis from Ohio! That’s my third species now that I was the first to post from OH. (Might be four though but not sure, no one ever came along to see if this was a potato aphid… hmm…)
Spring can’t come fast enough, I’d love to find more soon!
Wow what a beauty, congrats! Lycaenidae tends to give me trouble when I try to photograph them too so I understand the struggle. And such a rarely seen species too? With that luck you might want to try the lottery sometime soon!
So many grand victories for so many. It’s wonderful, how many great discoveries are made by iNatters.
As for my personal victories? Every time I have received an id with comments and congratulations on what I’ve photographed. Thanks!
I read a study the other day by Mina et al. (2020) talking about butterfly wingspan, thorax size, and wingbeat speed. In it they say that a reduction in wing area is typically compensated for by an increase in wingbeat frequency. It seems that the relationship is also affected by the amount of heat availability, because wingbeat increases with higher heat. If I understand correctly Canopy butterflies have the larger thorax and the smaller wings with faster wingbeats. Butterflies in the understories tend to have smaller thorax size, larger wings, and slower wingbeats. The canopy butterflies don’t need to use as much wing space to get the same amount of light that the understory butterflies get. The understory butterflies with the larger wings do more gliding and less flying because their wings aren’t as fast. It’s really interesting how the whole thing works together. Additionally, if you find large-winged butterflies that are out in the open they are more likely to be active during crepuscular hours, and small winged butterflies are more likely to be moving around during the day.
Anyway, I don’t have a victory or milestone to share, but I thought it was interesting to learn why it is so hard to get pictures of some butterflies.
Mena S, Kozak KM, Cárdenas RE, Checa MF. 2020. Forest stratification shapes allometry and flight morphology of tropical butterflies. P Roy Soc Edinb B.287(1937):20201071.
The current covid pandemic got me back into lepidoptera and I joined iNaturalist soon afterward.
My plan was to identify as many leps as I could find on my property and around my neighbourhood.
I couldn’t find any checklists and there were few references dedicated to my home province of Saskatchewan. Over time I was able to connect with others on iNaturalist and get a great checklist of SK leps from one of the curators. Armed with the checklist and a homemade light trap, plus the expert help of more curators I was able to id some moths previously unrecorded for Saskatchewan: Oegoconia deauratella and Epiblema otiosana, as well as confirm a few other moths as being resident that were previously listed as probable.
It’s these small victories plus the welcoming nature of the iNat community that have made the last year and a half most rewarding on iNaturalist.
My first iNaturalist first: Pleurothallis giraldoi. I expected it to be an insect really, but I’ll take it ;) It’s a really beatiful orchid that caught my attention as it has this mussel-like flower that rests atop of its leaves. Very unique.
Identified a Spider Wasp as Machaerothrix johni, a new species for iNat, which I learned about when I was looking for ID resources for this Machaerothrix salticidus, which was also a new species for iNat when I identified it
Identified a Spider Wasp as Ceropales nigripes. Also a first for iNaturalist.
I probably have more identifier achievements but I don’t currently remember them. Maybe I should keep a record to motivate myself :)
Moth person here - for most moths I start with Moth Photographers Group (https://mothphotographersgroup.msstate.edu/), plate series, filtered for a place. Be careful - sometimes the cover photo looks nothing like the moth! A great feature is that it has links to other resources, like Bugguide, which often has a description of the moth or other links to papers. If you want more help on this, contact me on iNat. I’m in Winnipeg, and my user name is the same as this.
While working in Oklahoma last year because of the pandemic, I used a poster of rare plants and animals of Oklahoma as the basis for targeting several species within the state. By doing so, I was able to add the first iNat observations of Prairie Mole Cricket and Rich Mountain Slitmouth