oofers

Joined: Nov 24, 2019 Last Active: Mar 1, 2024 iNaturalist NZ

Joined Mātaki Taiao circa 31 August 2017 on a since-deleted account after being directed from a WeedBusters page. I've come to like the Roadkill New Zealand project.

🇳🇿
Ko Kāi Tahu rāua ko Kāti Māmoe āku iwi

About mid-2020 or so I went through and annotated, double-checked, and sometimes corrected RG misidentifications for all the hundreds of Digitalis observations as of that time from several continents excluding Europe and North America.


Quick links

Map focus on Reefton, New Zealand
Popular
"casual" (tag)
"good as can be" (tag; since I have to enter these individually, it can be helpful if you leave a message to let me know before marking it such. Pinging is optional but will not attract my attention any quicker.)
"pupa to adult" (tag)

Tags for nearby tracks and waterways:
Bottled Lightning Powerhouse Walk
Deadman Creek
Īnangahua (awa)
Kōnini Track
Reefton to Blacks Point Gorge Walking Tracks
Reefton Walkway
Zig Zag Track

Below are easy links to see how local observations get moved through the system - you begin to see how photo quality and what parts of an organism are photographed play a big part in what makes an observation research grade. 🙂 Most of my older observations were done with 14MP phone cameras, newer ones are 16MP and it's still not 'the best', but hey. Feel free to ID any of mine to a level you feel most comfortable with.

~Superorder observations (Reefton's fossil observations so far are in here!)
Order observations
Suborder - Epifamily observations
Family observations
Subfamily - Tribe observations
Subtribe - Genushybrid observations
Subgenus - Complex observations
Species - Hybrid observations
Subspecies - Infrahybrid observations


'Nature notes'
(AKA 'why is nobody identifying my thing?')

L i f e. . . You should aim to take clear, brightly lit photos. Multiple photos of different parts of an organism where possible are good.

Animalia
∙ ∙ Mollusca
∙ ∙ ∙ Gastropoda
∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ Oxychilus: Poke soft flesh with a stick, see if a strong garlic scent is released. If yes, might be O. alliarius but smell can't be proven through photos or audio files. All Oxychilus species otherwise very similar in appearance.
∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ Flammulina: Try photographing the umbilicus (shell anatomy, examples) for a hopeful species ID.
∙ ∙ Arthropoda
∙ ∙ ∙ Juliformia: Most species will be hard to tell the difference without microscopic examination. However, Ophyiulus pilosus has a visible spike on its rear end, is hairy, and will more often be found around disturbed areas.
∙ ∙ ∙ Arachnida
∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ Anoteropsis species are very identical. Measuring size and diameter including and excluding legs may help.
∙ ∙ ∙ Pterygota eggs, larvae, pupae: - unless it's a common and/or introduced species, the best way to get these identified is to keep individuals in a container until maturity, then posting the stages separately (so that they can be appropriately annotated and show up in photo pools without being mixed up). Remember to link observations with each other as identifiers are likely to skip earlier stages. Check here for ideas on what a herbivorous species may feed on, and keep experimenting with different plants until it eats. Release if you aren't succeeding.
∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ Bombus: Only B. terrestris can be identified by stripes. The other three need to have their bums examined and can otherwise only be identified as Megabombus.
∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ Calliphora: Difference in hair number. Not as hard to tell as Lucilia but annoying nevertheless. Will add details later.
∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ Lucilia: There are two species which can be found in New Zealand that can only be diagnosed by the smaller hairs on their scutellum (back portion of the thorax). Check here and here for examples of the more common L. sericata (25-30 short hairs), and here and here for the less common L. cuprina (12-16 short hairs). The arrangement of hairs on the head, behind the eyes, also differs.
∙ ∙ Oligochaeta: most if not all 'earthworm-looking worms' will go here. Theoretically you can identify most introduced species (about 17) but there are too many native species (about 200) which need internal/microscopic examination.
∙ ∙ Geoplanidae: Use a stick to carefully flip these worms over (if there is resistance then the worm is about to snap in half), and take a few photos as these shots can help get something not only to species level but possibly to subspecies level.

Fungi
∙ ∙ Agaricomycotina: Mushrooms will go under this taxonomic branch.
∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ Ganoderma in New Zealand can only be identified to its genus level unless DNA sequencing is used.


Dang you guys had a philosophical conversation: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/the-vanishing-of-a-fellow-inatter/38221/30

Here you go.


Misc

Stuff that is not so important for iNat so it's at the bottom of my profile, but is everpresent and sometimes shows up in others' profiles, forum posts, and projects. Do not bring any such discussion or any other social-political issue into my own or anybody else's observations or unassociated iNat projects, forum posts, etc.

Unnecessary disturbances and pollution of a photo pool based on political signalling rather than observation or photo quality.
Do not do this, ever. Cheap activism for favourites on a nature-watching website should be frowned upon, not encouraged.

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