Shell - annotations unclear

General
1

I’m unhappy with the existing annotation categories.
Example: obs. is an empty sea or crab shell

  • should DEAD be marked
    and/or
  • CONSTRUCTION ?
    Especially construction is kind of strange for me →
    e.g. is the nest of a bird (not part of the animal, undoubtful a construction) the same cat. as a shell (part of animal) ??
    As I saw - annotations for shells are mostly unused,
    I guess it’s b/c people are confused about it (like me).
2

For a snail/bivalve, just mark it as dead. I’d choose organism for evidence of presence if you like, but it’s not necessary, I’d imagine. For these organisms, I think it’s implied that a shell is part of the evidence in almost all cases.

For a crab shell, it would depend of the shell is a molt or if it’s an actual dead crab. If it’s a molt, then molt for evidence of presence and cannot be determined for alive or dead, unless you are also seeing the organism itself. For a dead crab, just dead and organism should work, I think.

2 Likes
3

That sounds logical - thanks for your quick answer !

4

One final confirmation:
Category construction should only be used for things that are NOT part of an animal ?!

1 Like
5

I’m sure there are some gray areas, there always are in nature, but the construction value’s purpose is to help people find things the animal made that are separate from the animal, like spider webs, burrows, nests, and the like.

4 Likes
6

To play Devil’s Advocate, if a shell is marked as ‘organism’ because it’s part of the animal, shouldn’t the same apply to a bone?

7

I mean, we could parse these infinitely but I don’t see a point. The purpose to make useful categories for the photo browser and for projects. The Bone value is also defined thusly:

Predominantly endoskeletal remains. Partial bone exposure in an otherwise intact organism should be labeled “Organism”