What ID of yours are you most proud of?

Thank you for the link, which makes more sense. See the link in my post to see Rod Crawford the actor.

(Google and other search results are often different based on where you live and other factors.)

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Youā€™re very welcome. Sorry if that came across rude to you. I was surprised that anyone knew Johnny Crawford since he is so old and he was in my favorite show, the Rifleman.

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There are two native species of Galapagos tomatoes (S. cheesmaniae and S. galapagense)ā€¦ i posted the first observation of the latter: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/19933601

When I saw it over 20 yrs ago, I knew it was a tomato, but not that was an endemic species.

Subsequently, I found that there have been studies how it is dispersed to non-tortoise inhabited islandsā€¦ Mockingbirds!

Genetic Diversity and Population Structure of Two Tomato Species from the Galapagos Islands
GalƔpagos Tomatoes and Tortoises Author(s): Charles M. Rick and Robert I. Bowman
Galapagos mockingbird feeding on native tomatoes

I was also one of the first to post an observation of an uncommon Opuntia sp.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?verifiable=true&taxon_id=537637

The nerdfest rabbit hole of iNat!

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Cool!

Everyone is familiar with cultivated tomatoes, but I donā€™t know if Iā€™ve ever seen a wild species. I probably wouldnā€™t recognize it, if I did.

Very cool! I am fascinated by this name (S. cheesmaniae), do you have any origen information about it?

(I have S. erianthum in the garden but it is decidedly not a tomato. It is, however, kind of wild looking.)

I actually thought it was named for a local community college professor, turned tour leader, with that name. apparently it was a naturalist that worked on the islands. hard to find info on him, and i canā€™t again.

hereā€™s more info on these two species: https://keen101.wordpress.com/2018/02/01/wild-galapagos-island-tomatoes-and-the-secrets-of-diverse-wild-tomato-species/

I have two - mostly because of what I learned from finding them and then posting them:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/244368850
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/236387332

Really? That S. galapagense sure looked tomato-like to me: the form of the stems and branches, the flowers and the way they cluster, and the berries complete with five pointy bracts. In fact, the leaves are the only thing that would prevent me from confusing it with a feral tomato.

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I have a lot of IDs Iā€™m proud of (iNat firsts, range extensions, etc.), but the ones that really stand out in my memory are the ones where I got random, out-of-the-blue requests for ID help in locations outside my comfort zone, for species which were new to me, but diving into the literature turned up evidence leading to a good ID. I probably feel more proud of these than the important IDs because there have been a bunch of random requests where research turned up nothing and I had to admit defeat, so it felt incredibly good to succeed at a few of them.

Camouflaged spider in Tanzania: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/104052748

Fishing spider in Mexico: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/30958037

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unmistakable red ventral abdomen, which it flashes when in danger (spider stands on its head)

comment on the second obs for the Tanzanian spider
There are, only 2 obs for that!

The name of Solanum cheesmaniae (Riley) Fosberg honours Lucy Evelyn Cheesman, a intrepid entomologist initially linked with the London Zoological Gardens, then later with the British Museum (Natural History) who undertook many expeditions to the Pacific between 1924 and 1954, including spending extensive periods of time in New Guinea and Vanuatu. She collected a wealth of material, mainly insects, but various plants as well.

She wrote a number of books about her journeys. These were well-received and popular at the time, but are hard to come by now.

Her Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_Cheesman) is a good precis of her life and her activities, and a (perhaps rather dry) writeup about the nomenclatural issues around S. cheesmaniae was written by Knapp and Darwin (2006).

Knapp, S. and Darwin, S.C. (2006), (1736) Proposal to conserve the name Solanum cheesmaniae (L. Riley) Fosberg against S. cheesemanii Geras. (Solanaceae). Taxon, 55: 806-807. https://doi.org/10.2307/25065662

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Her Wikipedia page makes one feel absolutely a sloth. Goodness but she did not let impediments get in her way!

Thank you @sdjbrown for this info. Old books are sold in the mercados here (we throw nothing away that can be used or repurposed) and sometimes ones in other languages. I shall keep my eyes peeled now for her name.

(edit to @joescience1 so he has this info as well)

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Thank you @sdjbrown for alerting me to Lucy Evelyn Cheesman. Must really have been a remarkable woman. I just ordered one of her books: Things Worth While

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Just a reminder that Iā€™m not a software developer. I help communicate issues with our developers but I donā€™t fix software bugs. They do all the hard work. :grinning:

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This plant was fun to ID https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/39491342

As was https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/48289896

And this plant took a couple hours to decide on https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/204646614

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I feel that ID glow when I can ID an odonata nymph down to suborder. I like to think that Iā€™m helping observers feel like they are contributing to the Greater Body of Knowledge as well as build their ability to ID macros.

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Mine would be this:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/245679689

Itā€™s feels great, using a site thatā€™s been used less than 2500 times (image) for its intended purpose - allowing anyone, even non-experts, to do their research and contribute like this.

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Finally, an opportunity to boast happily about my nonexistent skills! I, being a noob in just about everything, was really proud when I successfully identified several new lepidopteran species (new to me, anyways). Iā€™m most proud of my id of the dakhan treebrown, and also my ability to id local birds.

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A few days ago I made what may be my least proud ID, haha. Was going through Unknowns when I saw a picture of a bright red sprig with red berries on a counter. Had no idea what it was, and the CV clearly didnā€™t either. Should have just marked it as flowering plant and moved on, but no, of course I couldnā€™t let it go, I was intrigued, I had to know what this was.

So I searched the image on Google, which brought up some hits for ā€˜canella berriesā€™ painted various colors (ah!) and sold as holiday decorations that looked exactly rightā€”ok, great, got it! But it clearly wasnā€™t the monotypic Canella winterana, and none of the sites gave the real scientific name. Another ten minutes of searching iNat and the web and pulling my hair out, and I finally found it (I think!): dried fruits from a kind of rattan palm (Calamus) painted red and commonly used in the ā€œpotpourri tradeā€: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/254817865

A bit embarrassed about how much time I spent on this casual observation, but I did actually learn something new, so yeah, thank you iNaturalist for being endlessly interesting!

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I adore these Huron Sachem observations. Theyā€™re not uncommon by any means, but Iā€™m very proud of these photos! I would photograph bugs with my phone on walks home from the bus stop, and these are by far my favorites.
First one
Second one
I either took videos and got pics from them or just pressed the button super fast :laughing:. I still gotta find some good bug places after movingā€¦ Iā€™ve been thinking about setting up a moth sheet in the spring.

Plus, hereā€™s a bonus jumping spider photoshoot!