Hi there, On several occasions I have observed records of preserved specimens, especially insects, labeled as “dead.” Is there a rule about this? I personally think that it is not appropriate to label it as dead because it would not reflect how it was found in nature. In addition, it causes prob…

I edited the above post because it referred to excluding the observations of a specific user. However, the forum isn’t a place for calling out specific users, and I think the explanation of the issue is clear without the reference to the user. I think the criteria here are good guidelines for how t…

I’ve often wondered about this. I don’t annotate pinned specimens as dead, because if they’re collected live and labeled properly, the “observation” is of a live insect in a certain time or place. (Of course, most entomologists will have a few insects in their collection/observations that were found…

[image] cthawley: Preserved specimens could easily have been found/collected dead though, so in most cases there’s no clear cut way to be sure how to annotate without input from the observer I think. yeah, I have a decent sized collection of pinned insects that are almost exclusively all spec…

Not directly. On the taxon’s ‘about’ page there are a few different ways you can show the graph, e.g. split by sex, but not by alive/dead I think. Maybe a feature request :)

[image] sammydstecher: Dead specimens of a lot of insects change drastically in color For non-scientists like me, who are using the photo to help me get closer to an ID - that dead colour would be confusing. Colour in the picture is dead, even when the scientist insists ‘it was alive when I c…

Yes, but for a pinned/preserved specimen, it is visually obvious that the picture is of a dead organism, so I don’t think that this should cause much confusion. The observation may show up when filtering for “alive”, but it’s easy to skip over/take into account these pictures if looking for ID info. …

[image] DianaStuder: I go up taxon levels till I am confident - and wait for Marina to take it further Now THAT would make a great quote for many a tombstone. (At least, around here.)

Please, sir - don’t shoot the messenger - I have LOTS more to ID …

As others have said, observations record encounters with organisms or recent evidence of organisms, and the annotation is for the observation, so it should reflect the state of the organism when the encounter took place. If/when we ever add photo annotation functionality, which we’d like to do, I t…

I meant this, of course, with nothing but full and utmost admiration of our mighty Ms. M! If iNat ever gets big enough to support an office building or small campus, they better name a building or two after her. (Maybe the campus pub?.. “Hey, see you after class.” “Sure. Where?” “How about at M…

[image] DianaStuder: I annotate as dead. Now THAT’S a t-shirt I would buy. (My apologies, I couldn’t resist. Please return to your serious discussion.)

Preserved specimens labelled as dead

General

egordon88 December 9, 2022, 10:53pm 23

Happens in many Hymenoptera, especially bees. Kind of disappointing when comparing live photos to pinned specimens.

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Preserved specimens labelled as dead

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