My mom has passed and I was thinking about photographing her sea shells she collected over her lifetime. I am 100% certain they came from the general vicinity of the Bay Area coast California. Would it be at all interesting to photograph and post them as casual observations with the location a giant circle indicating the coast and Not dated since they were collected any time between 1950-1990 ?
Maybe in the future someone looking at marine life could find at least some use of the casual observations?
I feel think about every possible way about this.
For one thing, iNaturalist posts should usually be about the interaction between a wild organism a person. In this case, the person who had that interaction was your mother, not you. Considering this, these might be suitable for Legacy Accounts, which don’t exist now but there’s a Feature Request for them ( https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/create-legacy-account-setting/59623/17 )
Then there’s the large uncertainty about when and where the shells were actually collected. Not good. There could be some value in demonstrating that the organisms did live there at one time, I suppose.
One possibility would be to find a nature center or school or club that might use these, perhaps for education. (I’d like to find such a place to donate the shells I got over a two year period in a small Polynesian country!)
This question has been extensively discussed before. Here is one relevant thread: Value of a large collection of shells without accurate location? - General - iNaturalist Community Forum
I think this is a good suggestion.
Posting one of each species may be especially useful if your mom has collected a good number or variety of species. Particularly if she had focus on species number or had collected any that were smaller than a dime (as micros tend to be rarely posted). Rather than post them as casual, I would recommend you post them from the specific beach you think she visited the most and use a date around the middle of the range like 1970, and then make a note in the ID (so that it can be clearly seen by IDers) that the specimen may have been found at a different but nearby location and at a different time.
If someone wants to mark them casual then that’s fine, it is technically correct. For the specific case of seashells, I wouldn’t post them as “casual” intentionally because time and location don’t need to be as accurate for them as it does for other organisms and IDers may be less likely to find your observations if you do.
Realistically, who knows how long that shell rolled on the beach before she picked it up? And yes, that might be precisely on the beach where you found a shell but that wasn’t where it was when it was alive. Many species don’t actually live in the surf but farther out to sea so it really could have come from anywhere.
Your local shellers might have different advice, but that is what I would do if I were you.
In the case of being potentially collected from anywhere in the world, I would totally agree, it has almost no value. However, in this case of a reasonably small location, the same species will likely be found across the entire area (although I only presume, I have no experience in the Bay Area). For Florida you find different species on the panhandle, at the Tampa area, Marco island area, the Keys, and so on, but within these basic locations they are pretty similar.
that’s what I was thinking. there aren’t a huge amount of shells but there are several of the same species. I was just going to photo some of them. Also, I am interacting with nature as these were wild and have sat around the house most or all of my life. I have some of my own that I got when I was little and I know exactly which beach those came which could be the same as some of the others.
If they are the same species as the ones that you personally collected (for which you have a more accurate record) then I would just post yours and maybe only include hers as a part of a group shot. You could include the group shot in the same observation but the focus should be on your collection. Standard iNat guidelines prioritize accuracy and personal experience.
I agree. If you do post them, prioritize the small ones because they are so often overlooked.
This scenario has been discussed extensively on the forum in some previous threads. This is probably the most recent that I know and I don’t think it’s been linked yet:
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/can-i-use-photos-taken-by-my-grandparents-or-other-deceased-estate/59535
As noted above, observations are generally for the interaction between an observer and the organism.
Since it sounds like you weren’t present for the interaction in the wild, you could also upload these as a series of present day observations that are Not Wild.
I agree with others that there might be good non-iNat uses for these too!
I’ve collected shells for many years and fortunately, with a museum and science background, my shells, the ones I add to iNat, are accurately dated and located.
In the past, I’ve also been a member of various shell clubs and I do know that a good deal of swopping, buying and selling goes on among the members both acting through the agency of the club and also just between friends, individuals and traders. Many of these shells have no or limited data and even if they do have dates and locs you need to be confident that they are correct. Some traders will give an inaccurate date and loc to increase the value of the shell. These may be swopped years later and you probably don’t know if the data comes from your recent swapper or from a trader many years earlier.
Me too. I have only posted shells from my personal collection that I collected myself. They all have locality data recorded at the time in my field book. I have never purchased shells. I do have a few shells in my collection that were given to me by other people and, although I have no reason to doubt the information they gave me, I can’t vouch for it, so I have not put those specimens on iNat. It’s a shame, because there are a couple of rarities that I’d like to be able to put on the map, but I was not present when they were collected.
If YOU would like to know what they are, you can post them and get suggestions from the INat community.
But since they are Casual Observations due to lack of accurate collection time and place, they have little scientific value
hmm… There may be some interesting, rare finds, but the term “seashells” is very, very imprecise. You are probably talking about the phylum Mollusca… This Phylum includes many classes and families that some of the INat users may have specialized in.
If you want to publish them, the condition of the shells & the presentation of each species is probably the most important thing. We have just opened a small forum topic on the subject of presenting seashells:
I am sorry for the loss of your mother. I think it is a great idea to photograph her shells. I know that there are many groups on facebook for collectors of shells and they would perhaps enjoy seeing photos of your mothers collection. I love the beauty of shells and I would enjoy looking at them and I’m sure others would to.
Photographing the shells is also a way for you to keep and value your mother’s collection without actually keeping it should you choose to donate it to a local school.