I didn’t find this when I searched, so if this has already been discussed, my apologies.
I was recently involved with attempting to document a taxidermy Lynx in a local museum that was shot a little over a hundred years ago. We were able to find a paper trail that connected the Lynx from the museum to the vicinity where it was shot. This is to the best of my knowledge, the only record of a Lynx in this state. The man who was running the documentation is going to be submitting it to the state records. If it is accepted, is that something that I could (should) submit on inaturalist? And if so, should the pin be at the museum where it now resides, or the general area where we believe it was shot?
In my opinion, since this is an important location record and there is evidence to back up where the animal originated, it qualifies as a legitimate record on iNat. Of course, the observation is not actually yours since someone else collected the specimen, although you’ll submit it as your record. And the location data to be included in the record should be for where it was collected and NOT where the taxidermy mount resides. I would include plenty of information in the Description field to explain this record.
I was thinking posting pictures of the Lynx, and all of the documentation papers, and then leave a lengthy description. All this assuming that the record is accepted at the state of course.
I’m thinking I should do something similar to this for a River Otter taxidermy mount from my state (the only native – not reintroduced – specimen ever preserved from the state). Although some users view such records skeptically, since they are “second hand observations” of an animal the observer did not actually see, they provide important information and are in some ways no different than photo-documenting sign, such as tracks, of an animal that also was not actually observed. The main difference is temporal … the record is from the distant past and does not reflect the present-day occurrence of an animal.
Just to be clear (and to help with jnstuart’s point about the past) I believe the date should also reflect when the specimen was collected rather than when the photo was taken.
If you could find a way to post the papers somewhere else, and link to them from the iNat observation instead, that would prevent a bunch of scanned paper images showing up as taxon photos for Lynx.
It is an area where internet databases tend to suffer, anything prior to the last couple of decades. I was lucky enough to come across some notebooks from the 1890’s to the 1930’s with birding records from my county made by a few different people. Some are just lists with no area information or other notes (can’t really use those), but some are quite detailed, saying where they were and in some cases describing the bird in detail. I have been trying to put these on to ebird as I figure out where some of these places are that they mention.