just a quick question that will probably be answered quickly.
I am working on a taxon for which I provided the first ID for iNat maybe 2 or 3 days ago. As I am at the moment IDing on my phone and I have not figured out yet how to work on taxon photos with it, I left the taxon photo blank for now. I was rather surprised to see just now that one had been added and as I wondered by whom I clicked on the photo history. Apparently inaturalist has added the photo. Does that mean it is an automated process now (or has always been??)? Or is that account used by curators or something? It is the first time I see this and I think I have seen taxa going without taxon photo for quite a while, despite observations having been IDed as the taxon.
I believe an automated process to add taxon photos was added a year or two ago, but I’m unsure what triggers it. Also, it doesn’t seem to be fully reliable, as I’ve seen some taxa have taxon photos added within 24 hours of the first observation and others that remain untouched after multiple observations accumulate.
Given that almost any iNat user can add and modify taxon images, I’d suggest that anyone interested in a particular species or family check out their favorite taxa and see if the selection of diagnostic images can be improved.
I noticed that the observation that provided the taxon photo is RGed due to the observer agreeing to my suggestion.. I am not sure whether those other taxa I observed for a long time staying without a taxon photo have RG observations.. so this might be the trigger then
