Journal archives for October 2020

October 4, 2020

A Numerical Milestone

When I first started using iNaturalist I had already accumulated about 15,000 observation records via other systems, but over 16 years. On iNaturalist however inspirational people like @finatic, who was leading the way with over 50,000 records, motivating comparisons like in this blog post about how many finatics other people were (as a ratio/fraction). In Australia I think @vicfazio3 had most observations and I remember globetrotters @sea-kangaroo and @silversea_starsong having many observations and identifications too. However at the time I thought I'd never become one finatic.

Changing circumstances however meant I started travelling more and I began photographing stuff almost every day. Previously I would be very targeted - I'd spend half a day chasing dragonflies and photographing nothing else. I now started photographing everything I could vaguely identify or that was interesting. Although typically I only make one observation of a species on a trip/walk (as I still do) - maybe sometimes I will make a few extra observations on longer trips. This meant I started accumulating records and once I was mentally programmed to photographing things in passing it was easy to average 100 observations per day.

For a few months since travel restrictions were imposed I didn't think I'd make 100,000 records by now but I still have some older images not submitted anywhere. I don't want to duplicate records so this is complicated by be submitting some records to other systems that reached Australia's national aggregator ALA (that includes many sources including museum specimens). When I'm away from home I take photos all day and evening until I go to bed (there isn't anything else to do). What I've also been doing this spring is spotlighting in my garden like I do when I'm out in the bush - its amazing how much minuscule life is out there (I don't live in a very urban area).

Of course 100,000 is an insignificant number of itself, it just looks aesthetic with out base-10 numbering system but it doesn't really mean much more than 99,000. However the next such aesthetic milestone of one million records is not within reach of me in my lifetime even if I continue to submit 30,000 records per year so at least I will save myself another blog post. :)

Thanks to all the great people who have lead the way and continue to help me and others understand what is around. I will mention a few people off the top of my head now but I hope everyone else isn't offended if I left them out. Identifying machines like @johnascher, who corrects all my many bee misidentifications (and of course globally). @borisb for all his beetle input, even reading up old literature to work out poorly known species from the other side of the world. Similarly @tony_d for his work on Australian flies and @matthew_connors has done a lot of researching numerous invertebrate groups. Also thanks to @wongun for bug assistance and @susanna_h for wasps.

My biggest problem is I know enough to know how little I know. 😀 See you all around online.

Posted on October 4, 2020 02:16 AM by reiner reiner | 8 comments | Leave a comment