Let’s say I come across a beaver dam (or other easily identifiable animal signs); can I post those observations, even when the actual animal was not observed directly?

Yes, scat, tracks, ‘homes’. bones, feathers etc are all acceptable and considered as evidence of the presence of something. There are even observation fields, in particular one called ‘Sign’ where you can record exactly what it is for search purposes (I am sure there are other Observation Fields doi…

Thanks, hadn’t realized I could add observations fields outside of a project… Looks like there’s “Sign”, “Track or Sign Type”, or “Type of sign” to choose from :upside_down_face:

A recent obs was an installed bat box. I was told that counts as evidence of Homo sapiens, but not of bats.

I’m sure many bat boxes go unused, so unless there was guano or other evidence of actual bats making it their home, makes sense to me to identify as human.

A beaver dam is part of the “extended phenotype” (to use Richard Dawkins’ term) of Castor canadensis. Some distinctive nests of certain birds may also be identifiable to species as well as the “houses” built by caddisflies. As sign these are different than tracks or scat which are not constructed b…

A tree that has been obviously chewed or felled by a beaver would also count as sign. Not all beavers build dams/lodges.

Yes people keep on insisting on re-inventing the wheel when it comes to fields. One of the most long standing for indirect evidence is “Animal sign and song” http://inaturalist.org/observation_fields/24

Getting off topic, but there is a field “inanimate object” that is useful for marking observations that are just really recording the location of a trap or animal nestbox etc https://www.inaturalist.org/observation_fields/1900 (but mark the observation as “no evidence or organism” too if it is unocc…

A semi-related note. There is an “Animal Architecture” project that you can add beaver dams, spider webs, wasp nests, and other animal constructs to.

Posting indirect evidence

General

bouteloua August 23, 2019, 8:43pm 7

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Annotations: Evidence of Presence- no "Value" selection for "Sign" such as nest/lodge/beaver stump? General question	2	427	March 5, 2023
Evidence of presence for beaver cuts on trees General	2	405	July 27, 2023
OK to post Observations of Animals Signs? General	4	220	April 11, 2025
What is evidence? General	60	8198	August 5, 2021
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Posting indirect evidence

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