Since I have seen the moths in life, I can confirm they are robust and sturdy. A bit like a bat flying around when one gets in the house in the evening.
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Just to be clear, I am not saying they do not migrate. I know of less robust moths that do migrate. More to say that the statement on Wiki was hard to confirm!
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So this is not about wikipedia in general, but about Hippotion eson. I have found an article, where the migration is cited. Sorry, it is in German, but he is citing in English. And about the reliability of wikipedia: it seems that the author has written two articles with the same title in different years, and wiki got the wrong one. But I haven’t managed to find the other one online…
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I agree. I wonder if, they do migrate.
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Thank you. German is fine for me - and I am now reassured that they do migrate.
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Please be very careful with the autoidentification tool. We have too many totally wrong IDs on iNat because people believe the auto-ID to be an authority. But it isn’t reliable (yet), it is like tossing a coin. It´s fascinating how often the engine is right, actually. But by far not enough to be relied on. So if you want to identify something, you will have to go the long way (as do we all): books, papers, net-articles, and more books … or you ask identifiers on iNat. We are still much better than the engine … 
There are many errors on Wikipedia and iNat and the internet in general … this is why I keep telling people to not rely on it. You know the net: everybody has a say, even those who actually have nothing to say at all. Same with science on the net, unfortunately. Judging by web commentaries, just everybody seems to be a scientist nowadays … this is why I keep pushing for the difficult way: recheck your sources, try to find a primary source (and try to understand it), buy an identification book of your favorite area or taxa. Attend an identification course. Read a lot.
In a nutshell: many newbies search for the easy way to ID stuff, like Star Treks “tricorder”. There isn’t one.
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iNat suggestions are a starting point. A field guide which doesn’t (cannot!) include all species is another starting point.
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Exactly. And a reminder that many species cannot be identified by photographs. I focus on pollinators and find it fascinating that within a family some species can be id’d by a single photo, some only with multiple photos, some only with a microscope, some only genetically.
In my experience it is about level and depth of engagement. A wiki article leads to buying a field guide, which leads to reading scientific papers, etc.
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and iNat and similar sources can connect us to experts who know better (sometimes online!) guides. I rarely use my butterfly guide anymore now that I know about the state’s butterfly atlas which is verified photos and species lists by county so much easier to sort through than a general southeastern butterfly guide because it literally does have every single species in it that we have here by county.
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Every day when I work thru Unknowns for the Rest of Africa there are missing species to flag for curation. iNat getting better and better and more comprehensive in its international coverage of species!
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Thank you for fixing that article. My real question is: How can I know that real scientists use data supplied on iNaturalist?
By data do you mean iNaturalist observations? Here are ~2,300 scientific articles that use iNaturalist data that was shared to GBIF, as one example: https://www.gbif.org/resource/search?contentType=literature&gbifDatasetKey=50c9509d-22c7-4a22-a47d-8c48425ef4a7 A lot of researchers are also highlighted on the iNaturalist Blog: https://www.inaturalist.org/blog
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Yes, we don’t wanna hear that! But it is true nonetheless.
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I haven’t read the entire thread here so I’ll just respond on a whim:
Anyone can contribute, which means anyone of any credibility can make changes. There is however some level of requirement for edits, so there is some vetting (think of it like the research grade system on iNat, but by trusted “moderators” only). In a sense it means most information added is not entirely susceptible to speculation or falsification. The requirement of citations is also an extra layer that helps justify any particular factual claims. So I guess take it all with a grain of salt, but in short, if you need to use this information for any serious reason, there should be adequate citations you can cite instead of the wikipedia page.
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I think it’d be cool if iNat used books like Systema Naturae as a reference, like quoting parts of the book and saying what page that quote is from.
Question: if the Wikipedia page for a taxon is revised, updated, and improved, how does that carry over to the iNat taxon page? Do the iNat taxon pages synchronize somehow with Wikipedia? I’ve never checked to see if an iNat page is current with what’s on Wikipedia.
It is the same text. iNat displays Wiki. iNatters update the Wiki. Round and round. As you were.
Thanks, I was wondering how regularly any revisions on the Wiki taxon page are reflected on the iNat taxon page. You can see a date of when the Wiki page was last revised but I haven’t noticed that on the iNat page.
It’s likely an active hyperlink type of thing, it is not a separate page.
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