Joined: Sep 15, 2014 Last Active: Sep 7, 2024 iNaturalist
Entomologist, aspiring naturalist, iNaturalist stan, & director of science and research at Discover Life in America.
I'm familiar with many of the common and interesting insects and plants of East Tennessee and the Great Smoky Mountains area and I'm learning to identify more every day through iNaturalist. I have a project in my tiny Knoxville neighborhood with more than 1,400 species (Life in Mount Pleasant)!
Smokies ATBI: At DLiA, we document the diversity of life in Great Smoky Mountains National Park through the All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory (ATBI). I keep up with new observations in the Smokies and tag those that represent new taxon records for the Park: 220 and counting. So far, Park visitors have made 180K observations of 6,600 species (that's 30% of the 22K species documented in GSMNP!). That's fantastic! But we can do even better!
Gear: I'm big into macro photography, especially of insects, but I'm also lazy. I take nearly all of my photos with an old Samsung Galaxy S10 with this 15x clip-on macro lens for most insects or this one for really close-up things, like bryophytes. These macros are both cheap and easy to replace when I frequently lose them in the field. I love the camera (and GPS) on this particular phone model and find it super convenient to take a gazillion georeferenced photos in the field, then crop and upload them from home. No tripod, no non-natural, external lighting (except a headlamp for night photography). I also always carry this UV flashlight.
Permits: Unless otherwise noted, any specimen I collect within GSMNP is under NPS research permit study number GRSM-00069. Do not collect insects or other material from national parks or other restricted areas without a valid research permit!
Please feel free to message or email me (will@dlia.org).