The people who sort unknowns often have a different skillset than the people who look at taxa that already have a broad ID. Often observations with broad IDs require more specialized knowledge, or at least a certain enjoyment of puzzle-solving – if it is something common and easy to categorize, it tends to get a more specific ID from the start and does not end up with a broad ID.
I don’t typically ID unknowns – I did so occasionally when I started on iNat, but I have learned that I find it depressing and I don’t feel that I can be particularly useful doing so. I have some generalist skill at IDing plants and insects in Europe and some specialist skill within both these taxa. If I look at unknowns there are going to be all sorts of things like mushrooms and lichens and bird calls that I can’t help with, plus lots of new user issues (cultivated plants, observations with problems, etc.) that I don’t always have the patience to deal with.
I generally use sorting with rank filters to do broad IDing. I know I am not the only person who does so – there are a few other users in Europe who I see going through broadly ID’d insects and hymenoptera. I think it may be somewhat less common with plants, since looking at plants or dicots can be disheartening if one is not good at IDing plants without flowers or fruit, but there do seem to be some brave souls who do this.
It is not difficult or time-consuming to apply filters, though it does require a certain amount of familiarity with the less obvious parts of iNat’s interface.
You know you really love entomology when you see a soft, lush, bright green bed of thick moss, and your first thought is: I bet there are lots of cool wolf spiders in there!!
They are good pics. Reminds me of how long I had to stand in one spot and how many (dozens? a hundred or more?) shots I had to take to finally get this elusive one: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/276578317
Odonates are fun but can be as tough as birds to photo. Particularly the ones that never seem to perch.
