On iNat, sometimes you see an ID of, say, “Plants” or “Typical Thrushes”. This happens for 1 of 2 reasons:
A user made an ID (say, “Rufous-breasted Robin” or “Sugar Maple”) that does not agree with the next or previous user’s ID (say, “American Robin” or “Elegant Zinnia”), or
The observer intentionally made a coarse ID because they couldn’t figure out what species they found.
For list 1, if a user makes an ID that disagrees with the community taxon, the algorithm will update the Species Name at the top to make sure it agrees with both the maverick and the leading/improving ID(s). For list 2, this is what this topic will explain.
Why should I use coarse IDs?
Coarse IDs are useful because they’re better than just guessing. If you just guess the species, that species may not live in your area and you’ll be in list 1 (unless you KNOW what you saw). For example, Eurasian Tree Sparrows don’t live in Hawaii and Mourning Doves don’t live in Australia. When submitting an observation, please try to agree with the “We’re pretty sure this is in the genus/family/order/tribe:” suggestion. Never select a subspecies unless you’re totally positive. I hope this topic helped you understand more about how to use iNat!
Someone has recently been guessing species IDs to my coarse IDs without being sure (even adds a ‘???’ to their IDs). I commented:
“please refrain from giving IDs to the species level if you are not sure. This way we improve the data quality from citizen-science by improving the verification of species ID.”
Coarse IDs can get an observation to the eyes and ears of taxon specialists who look at only observations of their taxon. I found this bird unidentified and called it a passerine. Four hours later, an ornithologist identified it as a common grackle.
Big fan of using course IDs on my own observations.
I often add course IDs at upload because I want to do more research before committing to a finer ID but would like to go ahead and get the observation uploaded so I can check that off my mental list and move on to the research part. My brain is pretty good but I take a “trust but verify” tack when it comes to what I think I know.
(I do not think I am alone in this, in that I see plenty of observations where the observe will come in pretty coursely, say perching birds, then come back same day to species. I always assume that like me, they just needed a moment to look something up or verify something in the photos, etc.)
The difficulty for me is that I often add course IDs and then when I research I often realize I have not allowed for some other possibility so some course IDs I am forced to leave.
I agree with most of what you say in your post, but there are quite a few instances where the “we’re pretty sure” CV suggestion turns out to be incorrect–especially at the genus level. So I would advise people to refrain from mechanically agreeing with the suggestion unless they themselves are pretty sure it’s correct. If they aren’t themselves pretty sure, go up to a higher taxonomic level (e.g. family) that includes the suggestion.
Not a birder so had to look up Typical Thrush. That is a Genus, would be wonderful if a broad plant ID was at Genus not the equivalent of ‘animal Kingdom’ ! We can dream …
Excellent point. It is so frustrating to have an observation just sit there and rot and not get any attention from those who are experts in that type of critter. So yes, the coarse ID will (or at least should) get those experts to see it and respond to your observation.
Yes. I have read and re-read what you wrote here, and still can not understand why you pointed this out. It seems so obvious that plants would go to plant kingdom and animals would go to animal kingdom. So I know there must be some point that you were making, beyond the obvious, but the way I am reading your sentence, I can not figure out what it was that you were trying to say. Any clarification of the point you are making will be much appreciated.
If the thrush had gone to Kingdom instead of Aves, let alone to Genus
then it would still be sitting in animal Kingdom.
The immediate ID only comes if you at least start at Aves.
The way iNat works for me, when entering an observation, is that it almost always suggest a genus-level ID, and then gives a short list of species within that genus that it likely could be, based on the location where the observation was made.
So starting at the genus level is the norm, not the exception. So typically, the genus level is the coarsest level that will be entered. Except on very rare occasions where it won’t even give me a genus suggestion - but that’s only happened a couple times in the several hundred observations I’ve made.
At least that is the way the website works for me. I should add that I use the actual website on a proper computer, not the app and definitely not on a phone. Maybe the phone version thingy doesn’t give you the genus to start with?
That might be the norm for you, but most of my observations start around family or order. I don’t know enough to suggest a genus for most things I see, especially when I am traveling.
While I understand the sentiment, and it probably doesn’t hurt, this doesn’t seem to be particularly useful. I think this is potentially specific to bird ID, but there aren’t many folks identifying birds by filtering at the order level.
Elegant Zinnia vs Sugar Maple goes to Plants because finer classifications such as the Daisy Family or Vascular Plants conflict with Woody Plants. American Robin vs Rufous-breasted Robin goes to Typical Thrushes because they are in the same genus rather than defaulting to Animals, Birds, or Songbirds.
I think there are e.g. owl specialists, but i agree probably not many people are filtering to exactly passerines.
EDIT: I had misunderstood and thought the bird was already IDed to Class=Aves based off the reply, but seeing as it was actually left totally unidentified, I think that ID is clearly quite helpful in getting the obs to the bird identifiers
Zinnias and maples are both eudicots, but one is a rosid and the other is an asterid. Eudicots aren’t a taxon here, so it goes to dicots. Woody plants are neither a clade nor a taxon.
