Observations never get discarded so you won’t need to worry about that ever. Often it just takes time for a specialist to come across your observations in order to identify them. I have had observations languishing without an identification for years before someone knowledgeable in the taxon and in the same country as me joined iNaturalist.
11 Likes
For newcomers to the site, I will also note that somewhat paradoxically in the northern hemisphere summer things are actually slower to get identified. With roughly 70 percent of site users located in the US and Canada, many top users and identifiers are busy enjoying time in the field right now giving less time for identifications.
This combined with the fact there are many more observations submitted in summer means a backlog can develop.
Often there is a surge of identifications on the winter as folks in the northern US and Canada have restricted observing opportunities.
Try to stay patient.
11 Likes
You have some amazing observations, don’t give up, some countries get less attention, but it also means we need more observations from there.
5 Likes
Dear dianastuder, whaichi, cmcheatle and melodi_96
thanks a lot for your responses and explanations. I was new in inaturalist and i did not know about this site much. therefore I become impatient. Sure. I will keep your advises in mind and wait more.
6 Likes
No problem! I understand how you feel/felt because when I first started using iNaturalist I sometimes found myself envious of users who could have their observations identified within minutes or hours. A few power users (making many observations and many identifications) have joined iNaturalist from South Korea over the past year or two and that has helped considerably.
Arthropods in particular can be challenging for people to identify if they’re not familiar with the local species. In my case, I bought a book on spiders in Korea and even though some spiders look “easy” to identify I’m still waiting for someone to confirm my identification. I’m sure it will happen some day though!
5 Likes
Yes, it looks like your observations (mostly insects) include lots of detail that should help them get positively IDed at some point. Those photos are a lot better than mine!
As others have mentioned, iNat is dependent on the user community. IDs are most frequent when your observation was made in an area with a lot of other iNat users, or you saw an organism that’s quite widely distributed, or something (like a bird) that has lots of knowledgeable identifiers. There are not so many identifiers for insects even in areas with lots of users, like North America.
5 Likes
Use other fora: Facebook has dozens of groups dedicated to plant IDs e.g. https://www.facebook.com/groups/623997204362467/
BugGuide https://bugguide.net/ is for arthropods …
4 Likes
Thanks for this topic. I joined iNaturalist last week as part of my COVID project to learn about bumble bees. After hanging around our raspberry patch with my phone I posted photos of my best attempts at identification and waited expectantly. Nada.
I often photograph plants I encounter on my daily walks and have a decent basic knowledge of native wildflowers so I started learning the system by posting photos (which led to me taking more photos of plants, which is a good thing) and I’m now scrounging old photos of whatever. I’ve had good response to the plants, mostly, so my feelings of rejection have subsided 
.
Alas, nobody has IDed any of my bees yet, which seems odd, given all the chatter about pollinators. Anyway, the context provided by the responders to this topic has been very helpful. Thanks.
4 Likes
Big part of bumblebees are not ided by general photos, they usually have groups of cryptic species, so probably only some of your photos can be ided to species.
2 Likes
Perhaps so, but from the reading that I’ve been doing that is really only an issue around here for a few species and I only anticipated that being a problem for one species which I photographed in damp, dusk conditions. Even in that case the habitat spoke to only one species.
I’m taking it as a lesson in patience - and humility, I suppose. The plant material, on the other hand, has been a rediscovered pleasure for which I am grateful. The response has been positive. I have also been motivated to get my SLR working again.
2 Likes
Have you used that only one species as an ID on your obs?
Even a (possibly) wrong ID can prompt a response, and you could delete yours later if you prefer.
Everything has an ID to species, including the one that is part of a 3 species group of challenging IDs. Even so, only one on those species is found in forest and the photographs (which are otherwise what you would expect from a phone camera in damp overcast conditions at dusk) shows the bee sitting of an unmistakable balsam fir branch.
I’ve done enough poking around to notice that the volume of outstanding bee IDs is large and the load is carried by a small group of people so I’ve figured out that I shouldn’t be bent out of shape about it. I just shared the story to support some of what I was seeing in the thread. I will have a celebratory cup of tea if/when one of my bee observations gets an ID.
2 Likes
I don’t know much about bees, but since reading your post I got interested and read a string of internet stories about bees.
This one from the New York Times was the most fun. It’s interactive and about identifying bees (very generally):
https://nyti.ms/2eQ3e6X
(you may have to do the quiz first to read the story, depending on your interface.)
This one was interesting, too: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/21/science/bees-pollination-farming.html?referringSource=articleShare
Have you added your bee observations to any projects?
That can help sometimes.
Three projects - Bumble bees of Ontario, Canada and the Americas
2 Likes
One thing I’ve learned is that the power users (those that care about having their observations ID’d, anyway) have all developed a social network over time. This network would be people who “follow” them and see whatever they submit, or people who “subscribe” to the same taxa or places that they frequent, or people they have commented back and forth with about previous id’s. This speeds up their IDs immeasurably. As a new user, you don’t have that network yet, but all the things you are doing are good steps toward building it. The main suggestion I would make that I haven’t seen here is, go to other poeple’s bumblebee IDs and ask an identifier a question like “what do you use to tell x from y?” (tag them with their name). If they answer, ask them to look at one of yours that you find confusing (give the link). You’ll learn more and start to “meet” more people that way.
11 Likes
Thank you. That’s very helpful.
2 Likes
Dear rupertclayton and johnsankey
Thanks a lot for your nice comments and advises. I am an entomologist and I kind of pay close attention to insects life details habitually. Therefore, my observation of insects are more detailed. Nevertheless, plants, fungi and other organisms are equally interesting for me, if I get to know more about them and Inaturalist is great for this mean.
As you said, insects’ identifiers are not so many, and most of them are working on specific groups (for example family or sub family) and this is the main problem. About those sites, I am already using sites such as bug guide net, Pyraloidea, Afromoth etc. for initial identification of insects and other arthropods. However, about plant and other organisms, I do not know guide site and I am grateful for recommendation
1 Like
This topic was automatically closed 60 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.