You know you're seriously into iNat when

[RangerMyles]

This is me!

[crellow]

…when most of the many hundreds of obscured observations on the map tile that covers your house are yours

[jasonhernandez74]

@melissadilara

… when you see a patient with a fungus on nails, immediately think if its ok to add the picture on iNat fungi family?

As long as you conform to ethics standards, sure. Informed consent, patient not identifiable, you know how it works.

[kiwifergus]

You know you’re seriously into iNat when someone says…

@jasonhernandez74

you know how it works.

…and you do!

[arboretum_amy]

@astra_the_dragon

@jasonhernandez74

Is that an actual selling point on a resume?

I sure hope so because I’ve sunk so many hours into this website it may as well be a part-time job

I put it on my resume too but I haven’t tried getting any jobs using that resume, only a grant (success there)

[sedgequeen]

I don’t know if it’s a selling point on a resume, but if you have a job where public outreach is important, it can be part of your accomplishments each year.

[okbirdman]

… you zoom in on old landscape shots to see if there are any identifiable plant parts that you were too young and foolish to photograph at the time (e.g. https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/69702307)

[kiwifergus]

You watch this video on population estimation, and the whole way through you are mentally relating it to population estimates from iNat data…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTmnVBJ9gCI

[ximango]

Or you think it’s not alive and it is - like when I thought I saw a black coffee cup lid in the woods and it was really a small black rat snake, coiled up. Got some cool pics.

[snakesrcool]

Or you think you see some pipe in the grass but whoops, its a tiger snake…

@okbirdman

… you zoom in on old landscape shots to see if there are any identifiable plant parts that you were too young and foolish to photograph at the time

Yep!

… when there is a shark at the beach and everybody flees, you are on the waterline hoping for just a glimpse…

[ram_k]

@KitKestrel

You get intensely excited when you realize that all the crappy nature photos you’ve taken over the past 20 years will actually be great quality for iNat.

this is what i am currently living for - the time when all my pictures are uploaded to inat

[naturalist_aditya]

This is true on so many levels!

[fluffyinca]

… you photograph the dead fleas you combed off your cat (I then forget to delete these pictures from my camera card, and my parents come across them later and say “Why, Mara, why?” because they forgot I use iNat).

[jasonhernandez74]

@fluffyinca

photograph the dead fleas you combed off your cat

…and then start reading up on different species of fleas, and dreaming of seeing some of the more esoteric ones. (Did you know that the Aplodontia, a rodent of the Pacific Northwest, has the world’s largest fleas?)

[raymie]

That is truly fascinating, Mountain Beaver is now even higher on my mammal wishlist than it already was.

[lia_the_naturalist]

You declutter your room… to make space for your nature stuff😂

[carnifex]

…you realize having documented the first Human Flea (Pulex irritans) on iNaturalist (despite not being a pet owner). Only accomplished because after suffering some days of nuisance (without actually catching one), you sneak back into the park where it was first encountered at the entrance of a burrow, actually manage to find one and take a photo of the small critter in situ, then catch it for later identification. I wrote sneaking, because you’d better not have your partner know that you might come home infestated with some more bloodsuckers just after getting rid of the previous ones - just for the sake of an observation…

[brownfam]

…You scream across the room at a random stranger “hey can i photograph your plant? It’s for a good cause!” and “Wait! stop the car! I see a [insert very small organism which I shouldn’t be able to see out of a moving vehicle]”
or
…when you dream about having an interaction with some person on who ID’d your post for you. (I’ve had dreams about meeting several fellow naturalists)

[fffffffff]

You can add those to a topic about iNat-related dreams!

[dannynelson94]

Haha! This is so true. “Oh, you brought your camera to take pictures of us? How nice.” “Not really for you, but sure.”