Having read the 2019 roadmap put out by Tony and seeing Geographic intelligence in the computer vision, I wanted to throw out for discussion this question. It is not stated (and may not be decided) how the geographic intelligence will determine if a species is found somewhere (other iNat sightings,…

[image] arachnojoe: Thanks Charlie. The fundamental problem is that the iNaturalist model for IDing species does not correlate with how species are ID’d in the real world. In the real world, most people don’t know how to ID species and so ID things to the wrong species. Only a few experts in eac…

Spiders are especially difficult because they are preserved in alcohol and we don’t know what most look like live. Alcohol can greatly change the color and posture. It takes a special effort to photograph them live before preservation and identification to learn what live spiders look like. No one c…

For what it’s worth, I think most spiders (in my area) are easily identified from photographs. The problem is there are few experts who use photographs, and thus little primary literature and few field field guides. In my mind the solution (and best use of your time), instead of spending all your ti…

I think the idea of trust filters is really interesting. I would not be happy if iNat assigned me to trust you (or anyone else) with spiders, but if given the chance to do so, i would ‘subscribe’ to you as a spider expert. Though, it isn’t an issue in my case because i won’t be overriding your spide…

I find it odd and frustrating that the ID suggestions provided by iNaturalist are sometimes so far off. For example, suggesting a scale-leaf juniper might be J. virginia and the ob is in Washington state. I also am perplexed when I see an ID such as Rocky Mountain juniper (J. scopulorum) in Italy. …

[image] chauncey: I find it odd and frustrating that the ID suggestions provided by iNaturalist are sometimes so far off. You are in good company! There is much relevant discussion earlier in this thread, and also here .

Here are some more bizarre iNaturalist IDs. In this first one, 3 people including myself indicate genus Mecaphesa. Someone else comes along and calls it Mecaphesa asperata. iNat calls this new ID “Leading” and headlines the page and search results for the specimen with “Mecaphesa asperata.” I then …

Mecaphesa asperata is a described and accepted taxa https://wsc.nmbe.ch/species/40955 on the other, it has to be over 2/3rds, so working back the common parent taxa is Thomisidae

I think arachnojoe’s point is that the first observation is of an undescribed species in Mecaphesa, not M. asperata. There is a sound but unintuitive way to deal with this: withdraw one’s initial observation of “Mecaphesa”, identify the observation as “Mecaphesa” again, and when the dialog box pops …

Actually even better is to id to genus, and add the details of the undescribed species (assuming it has a provisional or unpublished name etc) into the placeholder observation field so when decribed the record(s) can very quickly be found like here https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/10629821

What should represent a 'range' for a species in iNaturalist

General

jdmore April 3, 2019, 10:23pm 37

You are in good company! There is much relevant discussion earlier in this thread, and also here.

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Species range creep from misidentifications General	21	2934	July 23, 2020
Species Suggestions for the Wrong Continent General	90	10859	July 21, 2020
Why identifying ‘by range’ is a problem General	44	1998	October 25, 2024
Identifying based on location General question , id , identification , etiquette , location , out-of-range-species	47	1227	June 3, 2026
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What should represent a 'range' for a species in iNaturalist

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