I was scanning my list as thumbnails the other day and one really stood out to me because of the fact that it was flat and nondescript. But that’s due more to the species incredible camouflage.
Other times, It’s just the cropping algorithm.
And then I thought, hmm. What are the worst iNat thumbnails of all time?
Would you like to share any nominees?
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JSYK you can edit thumbnails on most taxons. Go to a taxon page then click curation, then edit photos. Often, the only reason a species has a poor thumbnail is because no better pictures exist.
Thanks, but I actually prefer the randomness. Who knows? Maybe it encourages your observation skills.
Plus, it’s kinda fun.
in this case op was referring to thumbnails of their own observations (is how I interpreted it)
Ah, I think you’re right.
I thought you meant for anyone when you mentioned the editing function.
But like I said, I prefer the mystery of the random. And especially with camouflagers.
I know a lot of people prefer to shoot and see them against a background say, that shows their shape and colour better, but I kinda like to showcase their amazing powers more, even if it means just showing a blob for a thumbnail.
Since I am an active IDer and know how I sometimes pick what I will ID and what I won´t give a second look, I actually always crop my pictures in a way that will show someone coming along and possibly IDing my stuff as much of the organism as possible.
But some of my older uploads feature interesting and very “helpful” thumbnails like those 
Long lizards are always a challenge and the thumbnail can’t really capture them. But I never crop my pictures to fit a square thumbnail.
I have a few photos of waterbirds where there will be several individuals on one edge of the photo and several individuals on the opposite edge so the thumbnail shows up as a square image of the stream they were in. I’ve started cropping those so that the thumbnail makes it clear which species was observed and then using the wide shot as a second or third photo for the observation. Probably makes it easier for folks doing identification through the Identify menu as well!
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