Tips for Identifying Unknowns

(First published during ID-athon May 2021, published again here with slight edits.)

Introducing Lotteryd

Tonight we have a guest post by Unknowns&Life master, @lotteryd, whose self-proclaimed specialty is "general weird stuff." I would like to especially note their use of menus "shortcuts" for taxa names, which means typing a partial name into the "suggest an ID" box and choosing from the resulting drop-down menu. Many of the shortcuts seem strange or non sequitur, but they save a ton of time.

Lotteryd's Tips

Hi folks, Blue asked me to say a few words since I like to ID Unknowns. Unknowns are the ones with no actual label yet, just blank or a placeholder.

To get to a pile of Unknowns, I start with https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?per_page=100&iconic_taxa=unknown&order=asc&without_taxon_id=48460
I can narrow in on a region easily by adding a choice of place, or leave as is for the global experience. Note, the results here are sorted by oldest first (&order=asc) because I like to do that, but that can be changed too. I like 100 per page because I find 30 too small and 200 too large for my taste, but that's adjustable too.
[note from Blue: I prefer to sort by random, since you get a mix of old and new, plus it means you don't run into the many people who prefer to start from one of the other end of the pile]

I also like to go through with the Life ones mixed together with Unknowns, using https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?per_page=100&iconic_taxa=unknown&order=asc&without_taxon_id=67333%2C131236%2C151817 . However, the Life category is different enough from the Unknowns, with its own complexities, that new IDers may want to stick with Unknowns only.

When approaching Unknowns, you'll probably find that most observations fit into Animalia, Plantae or Fungi. You can keep it as simple as using those basic labels if you like, and it will still make a helpful difference. Anything that doesn't fit into those 3--or if you don't know well enough to say whether it fits any of those--can be labeled Life and other folks can take a look later.

Any way you'd like to narrow down those IDs into still-broad categories is a bonus! Common breakdowns I use, with ways to get them in the pulldown in parenthesis:

Plantae (p, 1st choice):

• If it's a land plant that's not a liverwort or moss or such, Tracheophyta (t, 1st choice) includes ferns, conifers and angiosperms
• Anything that's a fern can start at Polypodiopsida (f, 2nd choice); anything conifer can be Pinales (pi, 2nd choice)
• If you can sort Angiospermae (a, 2nd choice) into Magnoliopsida (d, 1st choice) vs Liliopsida (mo, 1st choice) that's a bonus
• If you can tell Liliopsida down to grass/reed/sedge: (poa, 4th choice Poales broadly, 5th Poaceae if an actual grass) [Blue: alternatively, poal 1st choice for Poales, or g 1st choice for grasses]

Animalia (a, 1st choice):

• Many will be crawling things with legs, which can start at Arthropoda (a, 3rd choice). Of these, some common ones are general flying insects Pterygota (w, 2nd choice), spiders Aranae (aw, 3rd choice), ants Formicidae (ii, 1st choice), dragonflies Anisoptera (dr, 1st choice), moths/butterflies Lepidoptera (l, 1st choice)
• Other common ones will be in motion without legs, such as snails/slugs Gastropoda (gas, 1st choice), or segmented worms Annelida [Blue: if the "worm" does not have clear segments, leave it at Animalia.... and if it does, it still isn't L. terrestris...]
• A lot of Vertebrata (v, 1st choice) can be sorted: birds Aves (av, 1st choice), mammals Mammalia (m, 4th choice), frogs Anura, salamanders Caudata, turtles Testudines, snakes Serpentes, lizards Sauria, fish Actinopterygii (ray, 1st choice)

Fungi (f, 1st choice):

• If it looks like "a mushroom", often Agaricomycetes (Hom, 1st choice- the uppercasse H matters) will work

• If a lichen on a tree, often Lecanoromycetes (leca 1st choice) is OK
  But, Fungi can be tricky so staying broad is fine.

Life (u, 1st choice- that easy!)

• Use this when stumped or if it seems complicated
• It is still useful to call something weird "Life" if you know it's not just a rock. It really does go where others can see it a little faster than if it stayed "Unknown".

Other bit of advice: New IDers might want to skip anything with a placeholder, since an id should be accompanied by the extra work of pasting the placeholder text into your ID or a comment. If you do accidentally write over a placeholder without preserving it, you can get it back by withdrawing your ID to see it pop back up; or by loading a url for the observation with the string .json added at the end- then look for "species guess" in the results.

Biggest advice: Keep it fun and/or relaxing! If it's not either of those, take a break.

-LD

Publicado el 09 de diciembre de 2021 a las 03:49 AM por arboretum_amy