This is probably more applicable to gardeners/hobbyists like me, but here goes:
you’re able to fool people into thinking you’re this genius with a wealth of knowledge on taxon names, but without the AI to remind you how things are spelled, you’re useless.
same as above, except trees with compound leaves are your weakness. Hickory? Ash? Walnut? You knew the difference, but you slept since then, and now it’s all mixed up.
same with oaks. You know it’s an oak. What species of oak? It’s a mystery.
you fool people, but your cover is blown when you have to describe the differences between species of plants and you use words like ‘the stalk-thingy’.
… then you turn around and name a spider by its taxon name
Hi Eric. I can have a quick look over them all, although there may be plenty that I can say nothing about either because the photos don’t show the diagnostic features, or because I just don’t know that particular fauna.
That’s just being a photographer. So many times I’ll not take a photo because I know I can’t get a good enough image, even for an ID, even when I have my good cameras with me.
People on Nevis usually think the only reason that you would collect small shells is to make into jewelry that you would then try to sell. I have to explain to people that it is a scientific study to identify all the different species that live around the island, so we can record what lives here before it all disappears. They seem to understand that.
I’ve had a similar experience trying to get good photos of some isopods in abandoned military housing. Luckily I was able to prove I was a biology professor. But it’s amazing how suspicious they get.
you’ve capture many iNat firsts for your state/province/territory/area, not because they’re rare, rarely seen by people, or occur in specific environments, but because you were the first one who decided to take a photo of something extremely common and nondescript. That endangered plant in a preserve? Not you. The very common moth that was in a bathroom? That you.
you see a dead snake on its back in the road to your house, get home, walk all the way to it in order to preserve its memory on iNat. Only, it’s not a snake. It’s a branch from the river birch tree a few feet away.
Yes! The many bioblitzes I have been to (where the objective is to document as many different species as we can), and I watch all the participants walking over the Bellis perennis and not even giving it a thought!
… what’s weird is seeing that and realizing that i bought seed of that very plant. It’s a cultivated strain, but still. I guess this counts as another sign.
